


Chaos Theory

by HikariKitsune02



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games), Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-08-19 14:13:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 72,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8211409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HikariKitsune02/pseuds/HikariKitsune02
Summary: When security robots get hacked and attack "Miles Prower", he's caught on the scene by Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde of the ZPD. Things get worse as they take two different paths that cross usually only badly to get the same outcome. Can they stop the worst madman the world has seen from doing what he does best?





	1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I have no hold on Disney characters from Zootopia, nor Sega characters from Sonic.

So this story is something that wouldn't leave my head. A couple of things; Sonic characters are well-known. Sonic and Tails started traveling together back at Sonic 2, when they were 12 and 6 respectively. Tails is 16 as of this fic. So yes, he acts like a sarcastic...fox. That's just what happens when you're a fox in Zootopia, and you're 16. God knows I was much worse than this.

* * *

The world is a big place. Bigger than most people could even begin to comprehend. Within the last hundred years or so, animals and humans have figured out ways to travel around the world quickly and easier than ever before. But most beings never realized how large the world is.

I've seen it. I've seen more of the world than most beings, and I'm proud of that. I've seen the view from space, I've seen the view from under the Earth's crust. And each time I'm amazed at how little of the world others see.

Twelve years ago, I woke up on an island, with little to no knowledge of the world around me. I found myself tinkering with the items left behind. The island was attacked by those who wanted power, the actual true kind of power; Chaos. I defended the island, and drove them off. I was four.

Ten years ago, I followed a speedy little blue blur, who wasn't much older than me, on an adventure around West Island. That journey took him into space, and me just onto the edge. I was six, when I flew up into space to ensure my friend, my first and then-so-far only friend, would live. I followed him afterwards, onto a floating island, where we learned the actual meaning of power, of Chaos.

Of the Chaos Emeralds.

Ten years have passed since I met Sonic the Hedgehog. Ten years of what people once called 'heroism.' I disagree. Sonic is a hero. Shadow is a hero. Knuckles is a hero. I'm in the everlasting shade of their shadows, cast upon by their giant deeds.

At least, I used to think so. Six years ago, the water daemon Chaos (The word gets thrown around a lot, but I think anyone who saw Sonic's Doomsday Zone firsthand knows what real Chaos is like) tore down Station Square. Six years ago, the Biolizard was released on the ARK, and with it nearly the world was destroyed. Six years ago, Metal Sonic formed into the Metal Overlord, and almost took over the world.

I say almost a lot, and it really was almost. But Chaos is like that. It gives hope to those that have none, and then takes it away and plays with it for a while. It takes away hope from those who have plenty, who then smile and cheer when the world comes to rights again.

Four years ago, Black Doom almost killed us all. Four years ago, Dark Gaia almost killed us all. Four years ago, the most villainous person alive almost killed us all...ok, no he didn't that time. He just made a deadly interplanetary theme park. Only Sonic and I were in any real danger that time.

Two years ago, the Time Eater destroyed all of time, and then we brought it back. Two years ago, we found the Lost Hex, a land that had supposedly been missing for decades.

I've seen the world. But even then, even in the craziness that has been the last ten years, nothing could have prepared me for this.

I've been hurt. I've been hurt a lot. Sonic used to joke I was immortal back on West Island, and I knew where he was coming from. But nothing could prepare for the day when a squirrel my own age pushed me against the wall of a building.

And told me to "Leave me alone, you damn pred."

That hurt. That hurt more than it should have. He didn't recognize me. No one in this city recognizes me. I came here to be anonymous for a while, just a gifted college student with a knack for Chaos Engineering. I wanted to scream at him. Take off the three bands that bind my two tails to show only one.

Instead I just sighed and ducked as the squirrel tried to hit me. Thanks city. Always so lovely this time of year.

I've always seen things on a macro scale, a grand scale. For me, the world is always on the precipice of disaster and catastrophe. But in doing so I blinded myself to the micro scale, the city, the interpersonal.

One year ago, (Geez, we're back to this again, aren't we?) this city, Zootopia, one of the first mammal-only cities in existence, almost came crashing down due to an outbreak of primal savagery.

Sonic thought it was a Chaos Outbreak of some kind, at first. Then I told him it was only targeting those that, millennia ago, would've been called predators. He guessed bad drugs. He wasn't far off from the truth actually. He's good like that.

The city was being hit by a sheep, the assistant mayor, who was targeting predators by shooting them with some kind of flower extract drug, called 'Night Howlers'. The police, especially Officer Judy Hopps, found out and took her down. One would think the city would've healed from that little thing; predators and prey sitting around singing 'Kumbaya' or something. Well, they haven't. Specie-ism and racism are still extremely blatant. It's not as bad as it was, during the riots, thankfully. But it's bad enough. Bad enough to hurt.

I never usually dealt with it much, living as far on the outskirts as I could, in an old abandoned air field. Great area for practicing just about anything. From running to shooting, to making sure nothing blows up in case a Chaos Emerald conduit decides it wants to stop working, it's great. Almost as good as my workshop in the Mystic Ruins, down near the old Station Square. Of course, Sonic uses that one as a home base now. So I came up here to Zootopia to use this place for a while. It helps that the University here is really good. Specializes in Engineering, or so say the beavers. Not sure I buy that though. Although it is the only University that has any classes whatsoever on Chaos.

Everything I do or say involves Chaos in some way. Not many beings know about it; it's a force that governs the world. Some of us, like Sonic and I, know better. It doesn't govern the world; it made it. Chaos is the reason we all exist, how we all evolved near simultaneously. Something that random can only be considered 'chaotic'. The city though is completely ordinary asides from that. No random mad scientists, asides from the Night Howler incidents, no major political power, no major governmental nation. Completely ordinary.

Which is what made it a surprise when said mad scientist megalomaniac decided to show his face around here after not showing up for the last two years.

My name is Miles 'Tails' Prower, and sometimes I hate being a Hero.

* * *

"See, Carrots, I told you, you can't trust that guy," Nick Wilde said in his unique nonchalant way. "Any guy that stood you up once is going to do it again."

Judy Hopps, proud officer of the Zootopia Police Department, groaned loudly into the patrol cruiser's steering wheel. "Cheese and crackers, Nick, he was a nice guy! I just wanted to give him a second chance, that's all."

"And then, what, a third chance? Fourth? Just dump him, admit you're wrong, and go on. Simple, easy, elegant."

"Fine, fine, I'll text him after work. Although that makes me wonder why you're so interested in my love life all of a sudden," Judy said, glancing questioningly at her vulpine partner.

They had been partners, official partners at least, in the ZPD for nearly six months. In that time, they had quickly gained notoriety in the seediest parts of the city as 'those two cops that somehow unveiled a conspiracy and are doing their damnedest to ensure we don't forget it.' They had only been on two other major cases, both of which neither are allowed to speak of out loud and are treated as completely confidential.

There was, of course, the smattering of minor things, small time arrests and such. And while they had plenty of down time, such as sitting in a parked patrol cruiser surveying the street for any wrongdoing, they both rather enjoyed it. Nick enjoying it a lot more than he thought he would have. "Don't you know Carrots? I live vicariously through you." Although he may only enjoy it because he gets to tease Judy nearly as much as he wanted to. It was fun, teasing the life out of the cute little bunny. Not that he'd tell her that to her face. Not if he wanted to avoid getting his ears talked off for the next hour or two.

"Why don't you find yourself a girlfriend then? Can't be that hard for you."

"Why Carrots, are you implying that you think I'm handsome?" Nick asked in an overly teasing tone.

Judy blushed, her ears turning a slight shade of pink, as she gripped the wheel tighter. "Wha-no! I'm just say-"

"That is the nicest thing anyone has said to me! Thank you so much for that amazing compliment!"

"Nick that's not what I mea-"

"So you don't? Aw, Carrots, I'm hurt now. Raising my expectations only to hurt them."

Judy sighed as she finally just let Nick's behavior slide. She still had a lot to learn about the ex-con. "-...sly fox."

"Dumb bunny. You hopped right into that on." Judy could just feel the smugness ooze out of the fox. They had traded barbs and words with each other every day that they had been partners, and she knew to take everything Nick said with a grain of salt. Still, sometimes it was embarrassing, just how quickly the fox could tongue-tie her around using only words. He often told her it was just a skill she'd get used to eventually, and she has demonstrated the ability in the past to navigate those smirking waters that he specialized in. Silence reigned for a few minutes as they continued on their scheduled lookout. There wasn't much to look out for.

"Cruiser 247, this is Dispatch. Cruiser 247," the voice crackled out of the radio suddenly. Immediately all pretenses of laidback-ness had disappeared, and the two cops resumed their professionalism. Cruiser 247 was theirs.

"This is Cruiser 247, Wilde here. Whatcha got, Benji?" Nick said, waiting for the inevitable 'Judy reaction'. He wasn't wrong either, the rabbit had quickly done a sighing facepalm. At the same time! It was like a mix of both a sigh, and a facepalm, mixed up with all kinds of cute. How she managed that, he wouldn't know. But it sure was fun to rile her up!

"Disturbance in Savanna Central, close to your position. It's at 147 Prairie Road. Sounds like a riot or something from the phone. Go get 'em, you two!" Clawhauser's voice echoed through the car, his final message barely coming through as Judy started it up.

"That's a 10-4 Dispatch, Cruiser 247 on the way," Nick said, ensuring he was buckled up as Judy flicked on the lights. He had driven with the grey bunny enough to know that there was a real speed demon in those amethyst eyes of hers. And also that she liked to use the brakes to send poor foxes flying.

"So what're you thinking? Riot or something less?" Judy asked. Despite her partner's attempts, and successes, at getting underneath her skin she did highly value his knowledge of the city. Every time they got something, they'd always try to figure out what it was before they got there. Most of the time, put together, they succeeded. On those rare occasions when they had a complete difference of opinion, they were never shocked to find out that the truth was somewhere in the middle.

"A riot, on Prairie? No way, Carrots. Prairie's one of the safer streets. Probably just some fight that messed with Clawhauser's head."

"His hearing seemed fine to me. Maybe a crowd then?"

"I'd think it'd have to be. Five on a fight?"

"Are you betting, Wilde, with an officer of the law?"

"Just checking to make sure you're still listening."

As they turned a corner onto Prairie, they both starting to think that maybe they did have it wrong. Some windows were torn out, others had cars upturned. People were missing from the streets, their eyes looking out of their windows with worry. Judy had to slow down to avoid potholes that they were both sure hadn't been there twenty minutes before. Water leaked from the hydrants that had been blown open by something, going straight down the storm drains. It looked like something out of a zombie apocalypse movie.

And at the end they saw a single mammal, a fox. Not much older than high school age, his clothes ripped and torn, blood sliding down his orange-yellow furred legs and massive tail which didn't seem to bother him as he slipped a backpack on, looking all the while like nothing was wrong. Behind him lay a wreckage of a security robot, one of the newest models, it's main CPU core having been ripped apart. Occasional sparks shot outward, which didn't seem to bother the fox at all.

"Stop, ZPD!" Judy yelled as she got out of the cruiser with her tranquilizer ready to fire. Nick did similar, stepping over some broken glass and...bullet shells?

The security robots didn't carry live ammunition on them. Flag one was raised.

The fox's ears perked up as he shot his head to look at the two police officers. His eyes were a deep cyan, closer to the sky than any other color were wide in shock. Three large hairs halfway covered his eyes.

"Did you do this?" Nick asked, pointing to the wave of destruction behind him. He made sure that if he wasn't paying attention, that Judy was.

"No, that was the E-5400," the fox said, his voice shaky, as if he couldn't decide to run or stay. Flag two was raised.

"Drop the pack, and hold up your hands. Nick?" Judy said, keeping her tranquilizer gun at attention. She didn't want to give this guy any opportunity to hurt anyone else. The fox did so instantly, the pack crashing to the ground with a loud thump. He winced as he heard a few metal objects clanking together.

Nick had already gone into the cruiser to grab the radio. "Dispatch, this is Officer Wilde. I'm at 147 Prairie road and there's...something. We have a lone mammal, high school or college, with a ripped apart security robot."

"10-4 Wilde. Will you need backup?"

"Kid seems to be going along. Going to grab a statement from the kid before grabbing the robot's corpse. Maybe send for medical though, he looks injured."

"Understood."

Nick looked over to the Judy and the fox, both currently in a kind of one-way standoff. He nodded to the bunny, who nodded back and turned to the tod.

"Right. Send your pack over this way. My partner's going to search it while you tell me what happened."

The fox swallowed audibly before kicking the backpack over to Nick. It was a good strong kick, and it thumped heavily against the curb it landed on as it sailed across the ground. He grabbed it quickly, hefting it onto the curb before searching through it. Books, mostly, paper, pens, usual college stuff. Two lock boxes clanked at the bottom. Nick nodded towards Judy; if the reynard had guns in the lock boxes, he didn't have them anymore. Although there were a lot of spent gun shells on the ground...a lot more than it looked this bag could carry.

"That's good. You're not in trouble, maybe, but we need to know what happened," Judy said, finally relaxing her gun. Seeing her do so seemed to relieve the fox, as he relaxed visibly and started talking.

"I don't really know too much. I was walking by and the robot suddenly turned to me and said 'Lay down your arms and surrender immediately.' before it started shooting at me. With actual bullets! I was lucky to dodge out of the way," the fox said. Judy nodded absentmindedly as she focused on her hearing. The fox's heart was beating loud enough to be heard, at least by her. She was trying to listen for any change in inflections that could indicate a major lie. It was one of those useful skills that most beat cops like her didn't have, but whatever gave her an advantage.

"Ok. And then what happened?" she asked as she wrote down the general report with one of her carrot recorder pens. It wasn't strictly legal, exactly, to record without the other person knowing, but it certainly helped their incident reports. They had cracked a couple of smaller robberies using the same way they had caught Bellwether last year.

"Well, it smashed the car, starting chasing and shooting me, and then I hid behind another car out of its sight. I grabbed a wrench from my pack and tried to find its CPU to knock it out of commission."

"I think you managed it," Judy said, impressed. The security robots were still rather new, having been introduced to Zootopia slightly after the end of the Night Howler incidents. They were known for being tough, and having armor that could survive the majority of attacks from anything short of 'heavy ordinance', such as rockets or other ballistics. They did have their weak points, but it would take someone awfully familiar with them to be able to find them and exploit them.

"I'll say. Heck of an arm, kid," Nick said as he brought out the damaged CPU core from the wreckage. It was a small sphere, that usually was lit up with dancing lights. This one however, was bent all out of shape with the hits of a wrench. It was completely dark.

"Wow. I didn't think I'd do that much damage..."

"Do you have a moment to come down to the station to take a more permanent statement?" Judy asked. She had gotten an idea of what had happened from what the fox had said earlier, but the wreckage of the robot didn't support that. The robots were vaguely humanoid, named after the humans that populate the other areas of the world. Most of them were vaguely egg-shaped, and had giant torsos, legs and arms for armor. Their 'eyes' were in the center of the torso, which also included the CPU core. The arms had a variety of weapons built in depending on the function of the robot.

This one no longer looked like any robot she had ever seen. There were dents in the armor that looked closer to a wrecking ball than a wrench. One of the arms had fallen off, exposing the circuitry inside. And the torso was almost torn in half. Even some parts of the lower arms, which were still smoking, were in more parts than there were bullets on the ground.

"Oh, uh, sure. Can I just grab my pack first?" The fox asked, pointing over to the run down bag.

"Sure. Have anything to declare, like weapons or licenses or anything like that?"

"Oh, uh...no weapons or anything. Just books and boxes."

"Hey Carrots, I'm gonna call this place in and get someone to cordon off the area for the crews," Nick said, tossing the destroyed core up and down into the air, like some kind of football.

"Alright. Put the bag in the back, would you?" Judy asked, pointing to the backpack. Nick shrugged, before trying to lift up the bag.

"Wow, geez, what do you have in here? Twenty pounds of steel or something?" Nick asked as he tossed open the back of the cruiser and stuffed it in it with a large whump.

"No, like I said, just books and boxes..." the fox said, his ears laying down flat on his head. They were rather large for his size, and although he shared the same coloring as a fennec fox, he was much larger than any fennec either of them had ever seen.

"Just a few more questions, ok? We'll get a more official statement from you later down at the station, but what's your name and occupation?"

"Miles Prower, student."

"Miles...Pro...wer. Got it. Thank you Mr. Prower, we're just going to wait for some others to come by before we head down, ok? Mind if we check out your injuries, to know how bad they are?"

The fox nodded and sat down on the curb, seemingly exhausted. Judy got out some of the first aid, and with Nick behind her waiting for the others, dabbed away the matting blood on the boy's legs. To her surprise, there wasn't anything under them. No injuries, not even any scars. She looked over to her partner, who saw the same thing she did. He shrugged. They'd find out more at the station.

* * *

 

>   
> To: Sonic  
> From: Tails
> 
> Hey, Sonic. So remember how you said, six years ago during the ARK incident, how there's always a bunch of police around when you don't need them? Guess who just got messed up with the police!? This fox!
> 
> So bit of a background to this. Zootopia's decided that it would, for some reason or another, start protecting certain places like banks and big transit areas with security robots, as robots didn't need to A) be paid, and B) were less likely to make a mistake. Sound plan, I'm thinking. But then they decided to go for Eggman's robots. Seriously, the guy is still using the E-5400's. You know, the one's that are the upgraded models of the Egg Pawns from the Metal Overlord, but have the toughness of the E-2000's? Yeah, those guys. He's selling them as security robos now.
> 
> They still can't take a hit. Good for us, I guess.
> 
> Anyways, I was on my way back from class when one of the robots noticed me. I recognized it as one of Eggman's immediately, regardless of what anyone else says (I definitely was not staring down at my phone!) so disregard all of that slander and lies. It must've recognized me somehow, because it tried to shoot me, with bullets. By the way, guns have been outlawed in Zootopia for nearly fifty years, and the robots are searched upon entrance into the city to make sure they don't have any live ammo. Guess Eggman's found a secondary spot for it.
> 
> I had rings on me, as always, so it didn't hurt. Although it was unpleasant. I lead it out of the station onto the road. It smashes a few cars in its way until everyone sane left. Then I started busting into it, before I remembered the CPU core's in the center. You know how you always told me to have something to defend myself in reach? And no Sonic, I don't care that you don't remember saying that, you did. Might've been when you accidentally got drunk five years ago, but you definitely did.
> 
> Anyways, I keep a wrench with me at all times. Don't laugh, Sonic, those things hurt. Tore the robot apart, essentially. Got a few knicks in my legs when I went to spindash through its chest to grab the core, but nothing a few minutes of ring healing didn't get rid of. The police didn't even notice that I did it!
> 
> Oh right, the police. So they happened to show up right as I was about get out of there. These guys use tranqs, not actual guns, which means that yes Sonic, if we get hit by these we go down. For a time. Probably not long. Anyways, they showed up, asked me some questions such as 'what happened', and I told them the basics. Got shot at, used cars as blockades, used a wrench to win. But guess who they sent? Only the only fox cop in the entire freaking precinct. And if that's not worse, they also sent the only bunny cop too, "Hero Hopps" herself!
> 
> And if you say anything about how I seem to be lucky with rabbits, I'm going to install that trapdoor in the Mystic Ruins that leads directly into the pool. Right under the welcome mat.
> 
> So yeah, they took me down to the station, wanted to ask me a few a things. They wanted to try and run a data core analysis on the CPU core, but they didn't have much luck with that. Which is unfortunate. I already ran that data (see, it's attached. That's what the little paperclip means Sonic.) and that robot had secondary controls that activated only if it saw me or you. I'll have to take a deeper dive later on.
> 
> I checked what data I could on my phone, can't get much here for obvious reasons, but I think Eggman made a patch within the last week, and every robot made after a certain date contains those same orders.
> 
> Why can't anything be simple anymore?

* * *

>   
>  To: Tails  
>  From: Sonic
> 
> Tails!
> 
> If it was simple, it wouldn't be fun!

* * *

>   
> To: Sonic  
> From: Tails
> 
> Sonic,
> 
> Of course you'd say that.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is...by far, my weakest chapter. I've tried to add in what I could, but I think it's starting to be obvious that I use Notepad on a small screen to write. A large paragraph there is only three lines here. Which do most people prefer, small chunks (good sized paragraphs to me) or larger paragraphs (super sized to me)?

The ride back was filled with silence. Judy was driving, while the fox, Miles, was sitting sullenly in the back texting something onto his phone, his paws almost dancing across the screen without a thought. She tried to look at the number, but it was just barely too small to make out. Nick just stared out the window, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.

Other crews had come in and roped the area off and had already started on the necessary street repairs. Fortunately it wasn't as bad as it looked, but it would still total easily over a thousand dollars worth of damage, if not more.

"Big Tails fan huh?" Nick suddenly asked, turning around to the back seat where Miles sat. He looked up in shock for a moment before smiling with a hint of irony.

"Kind of. I guess you could say that."

"You seen the newer ones? Like 'Sonic and Tails at the Lost Hex'?' Nick asked. Judy looked inquisitively over at her partner. She knew enough to know when to be suspicious. And while she shouldn't be suspicious of her partner, sometimes his attitude was just a bit too much like when he tried to con someone, or get more information out of them than he should have. He was good at tricking mammals like that.

"Yeah, I've seen it. Sucked."

"I know! Generations was much better."

"Eh, kind of. They still got a lot of things wrong."

"Wrong? What do you mean?"

"Seriously? Like half the movie was completely wrong."

"I don't know, I thought it was good," Judy piped up. She had always enjoyed the Sonic and Tails films. Mostly children's films, they were a kind of brainless film, the kind you could watch and turn off your brain and still know what happened. A basic good vs. evil plot. They were supposedly based off a true story, as several million mammals could attest to, as well as the half of the moon still remaining.

"It was good, yeah, but still wrong. There are some things that you can't just put in film."

"Like what? You sound as if you've seen the actual events."

"It's not hard to piece them together. In the movie the Time Eater took a couple of days, with them supposedly camping out in the white void. In actuality there was no time there, so really, it happened near instantaneously."

"Huh. That's a pretty small critique," Nick pointed out. The Sonic and Tails movies were some of the highest grossing films of all time, especially since they were said to be based on a true story. Most mammals enjoyed them, and there were a solid amount of them that went into fan-boy territory, claiming anything and everything about the epic duo. From meeting them, to seeing the same places they've been to, to even knowing where they've been for the last two years.

"Well, there are other things that went wrong too. Like the sets. They just reused the set for Angel Island twice, once for the Green Hill and another for Mushroom Hill."

"Aren't they similar though?"

"Uh..sure, I guess, in the same way that Savanna Central is the same as Sahara Square."

"But there's nothing similar about those!" Judy pointed out.

"That's his point, Carrots," Nick said as Miles nodded sagely.

"Oh," Judy said as she sagged back down into the seat. They didn't have much more time before they'd hit the precinct station. "Hey Nick, I'll get the statement from Miles if you handle the paperwork."

"No way Fluff, I remember last time. You get the paperwork, I get the suspect."

"Fine, fine. Remember though, no more than twenty!" Judy reminded. Nick rolled his eyes at being told again. One of the rules of the ZPD was that in an informal statement, as the kind they were getting from Miles, was to last no more than fifteen, twenty minutes at maximum unless they said something truly condemning. Most of the time Nick didn't even need five.

Miles chuckled as he went back to his phone. He was typing something, although neither Judy nor Nick could tell what exactly. The rest of the ride was done in an easygoing silence, as they could hear the small tap-tap-tap of Miles' fingers going over the phone. He looked as if he was concentrating hard on it, judging exactly what to say and how to say it, and neither Nick or Judy wanted to interrupt him until after they had gotten to the station.

"Come right this way, suspect!" Nick announced as he held the door open for Miles to get down out of the cruiser. He let out a quiet and insecure chuckle as he did. "This won't take long, only a few minutes. The statement from earlier solves most of the things, we just need you here to ask a few others," Nick continued, trying to do his best to allay the vulpine's thoughts.

"Um...ok," Miles said as he was lead by the bigger fox through the police station. It was fairly large, at least the garage was, and seemed to have an echoing feeling. It quickly opened up to the back of the front desk, with a rather...supportly...cheetah manning it. Far in the corner Miles could see what looked like a half-eaten package of donuts, right within the cheetah's range.

"Hiya Benji!" Nick waved as he passed by, getting a large smile and wave in return. "That's Clawhauser. He's a cool guy. If you want to get on his good side, here's a tip; grab a donut before seeing him," Nick said, whispering conspiratorially to the younger vulpine, "especially the ones with sprinkles. He loves them!"

"A...donut, really? Here I thought you cops all tried to stay away from stereotypes," Miles said as he continued looking around. The front desk had several of the giant metal ZPD badge logos on it, each one reflecting the light a different way. The white tile was warm on his paws, and he seemed to try to take in everything that he saw.

"Stereotypes are there for a reason. Besides, donuts are quick, easy, cheap, and good. Don't knock 'em," Nick smiled slyly as he led the other vulpine down a row of desks and cubicles. Many of them had simple names on them, 'Fangmeyer', 'Grizzoli' were two of the few that Miles caught. Eventually he got to one that had two. 'Wilde' 'Hopps'. It was exactly what you would expect from a cubicle. Tall walls in all four directions, and this one had two chairs, seemingly far too large for the mammals that used them, two smaller desks that looked as if they had been tables that had been sawed in half, and laptop computers hooked into the walls.

"Right, so the chief wants us to let you know right now you're not under arrest, but trashing a security robot like you did does put you under our radar. So I just need you to answer a few questions, ok?"

"Alright...?" Miles started, raising an eyebrow towards the older fox. Nick noticed that he seemed strangely at ease inside the precinct. The last college or high school guy that he had done this act to was shaking in his boots. Miles, if that was his name, had been questioned by police somewhere before. Whether that was a good thing or not, Nick had yet to decide.

"Alright, for the record, please state your full name, occupation, and current residence."

"Miles Prower, student, 5434 Cedar Lane."

"Isn't that an old abandoned air field out past the rainforest district?" Nick asked. What was a kid like this doing way out there?

"Yeah it is. I bought it for cheap, started to build it back up." Nick raised his eyebrow for a moment, before shucking that piece of knowledge away. The kid bought his own place, and even abandoned as it was that kind of place couldn't be cheap. 'Wonder how the kid got the money for it, or if it came from mom and pops...'

"I see. Explain to me again, again for the record, what it is that happened."

"Again? Ok... I walked past the robot in the prairie road station, it turned on, started to attack me, I ran, eventually hit it with a wrench to make it stop," Miles breathed out quickly. Nick sighed internally, this was going to be a difficult one wasn't it.

"I see. And where is the wrench now?"

"That I used? In my backpack," Miles said, looking around slightly awkwardly. It wasn't the usual suspect workaround that most suspects gave Nick, as most of them either started cursing at him or not telling him at all. Granted, Miles had already told them where the wrench was, and not doing so here would only be more suspicious. 'Alright,' Nick thought, 'let's try a different route.'

"Do you have any emergency contacts?"

"Uh..." Miles appeared to do a kind of mental backtracking. Nick smiled. He had knocked the vulpine off his guard again. The kid may be smart but he had a lot to learn before he could play with the best of them. And asking seemingly random questions after other questions was one of the best ways to learn information from the tip of the tongue. "Let's see, just the one. His number is seven six six, four two seven, seven three three three...I think that's right. Can't give you his birth name though, as I don't really know what it is." 'This kid is getting stranger and stranger. He had a phone number to use as a contact, but no name to go with it? He did say birth name, so I guess that means there's a nickname involved. Don't have too much time left, not enough time to ask, the number's good enough for now. I'll search it up later,' Nick thought.

"Alright. We'll come back to that if we have time, just for safety reasons. One last question for you Miles. Why did you call that robot an E-5400?" Nick grinned internally. It was subtle, but the fox definitely knew more about those robots than what he had said earlier.

The orangish vulpine didn't seem to react much. Instead he just said made an 'oh...' face and took a moment to answer. "That's because that's what they are. The robot models? If you get them from Meteor Tech, which most of you do - they're the cheapest - Meteor Tech is nothing but E-series robots. Fortunately without the pilots. At least you guys sprung for the 5400's, I've seen the 10000 line get mowed down by the dozen before."

Nick blinked as he struggled to process all the information presented at once. Meteor Tech? "Pilots?" he struggled to get out. 'Never mind,' Nick thought, 'this one is fine on his own. What I wouldn't give to pick this kid's head some more!'

"The E-series has usually had pilots, up until the Egg Pawns a few years back. The last one to actually use a pilot I think was E-106 officially, but I'm not sure on Omega, if he uses a pilot or not. If he doesn't, I'm glad he's on our side."

"What exactly are pilots?" Nick asked, his eyes going back over to the clock. In a simple statement like this one, they weren't allowed to keep anyone detained for longer than fifteen, twenty minutes at most unless they gave a suspicious reason. As this was at most an informal statement, Nick had to follow up on everything Miles said, but nothing the vulpine's said yet actually was condemning. They gave plenty of questions though, and it seems like Miles knew every bit of this.

Miles stared at the ceiling, seemingly contemplating his answer for a moment or two. "June twenty third, nineteen ninety-one. Look up that date in backdated newspapers, that should tell you everything you need to know about pilots. Be glad that they aren't in use anymore."

"Right...well, thanks Miles. We'll be in contact if we need any more information," Nick said, getting up and motioning for Miles to do the same. They shook paws, and Nick noticed another strange thing; Miles had five fingers. It wasn't unheard of, although it was rare. Just another unique identifier, like almost everything about this boy.

"Sure, no problem Officer Wilde."

Nick sat back down at his desk after escorting the orange vulpine out, his mind filled with question after question, and played the recorded conversation over again. Pilots. E-series. June 23rd, 1991. Meteor Tech. He sighed and laid his head back right as Judy walked back in, her arms full of various forms and documents. Some of them were almost as big as she was. She looked at his face for barely a moment.

"That bad?" Judy asked, sitting down in the desk behind him. They were two of the only partners to share cubicle space like this, seeing as how they were two of the smallest mammals on the force. The ZPD had gotten desks and computers that were of smaller size, thankfully, but the force wasn't going to give individual desk space to the two.

"You have no idea, Carrots. Look up this number for me, I need to look up...a lot of things," Nick said, handing a sticky note to the bunny behind him. She looked down, frowning at the phone number.

"This is a..."

"Intercontinental number yeah. Miles said to use it for his emergency contact notification."

"Right," Judy said, turning to the computer in front of her. "You didn't get a name?" she asked, frowning as Nick shook his head. It wasn't that big of a deal, but it was still information she would've liked to have as she updated Miles' information. She felt lucky that she was in the system now, and didn't need to rely on Bellwether to search the system for her, like she had to nearly a year ago. That would've been strange, considering that she was one of the reasons the sheep was behind bars.

The pair worked in silence for a few moments, before Nick picked back up again. "Hey, Carrots...do you know anything in particular about June 23rd, 1991?"

The gray bunny turned around and peered at her red fox partner. "Not off the top of my head, no, why?" she asked. Nick was trying to play it off, like it was some random question, but the specificity was off, and despite Nick trying to not make it too big a deal, it raised every red flag she had for her partner's behavior.

"Another Miles thing. He said to look up that date to know more about E-series, and 'Pilots'."

Judy 'Hmm...'ed and went back to her computer. It usually took a bit of time to look up a phone number, especially a mobile phone number, and it was made even worse when it was an intercontinental. Certainly a pricey phone, to be an intercontinental mobile. She continued to update the files with Miles' basic information, as she was prone to doing even if they weren't an actual suspect. The computer beeped once, signifying the search had finished.

"Sonic," Judy squeaked out once the computer hit a match. Nick turned around questioningly, his chair squeaking, as he peered around her shoulder to her screen.

It showed only one match for the number. "Sonic the Hedgehog", it glowed in blue and white.

"Mr. Prower just gave us the number to Sonic the Hedgehog. To use as an emergency contact. You don't think..." Judy said in disbelief. She looked over her shoulder to her partner, also staring in disbelief.

"He's around the right age...wait, wasn't June 23rd when Sonic first appeared in the news? On South Island?" Nick suddenly got a brainwave, and turned to the computer in front of him. He started typing furiously, accessing records that had long since been buried on public servers.

The information flowed fast and furious afterwards. They had to use police authorization a couple of times, and there were many documents even they couldn't get access to, but the picture was starting to become clearer, and darker as they went.

Pilots referred to the animals that Dr. Robotnik, or as Sonic calls him, Eggman, had powered his robots with, the same ones that Sonic freed so many years ago. The E-series was a line of robots that exhibited the intelligence of their pilots, but as Eggman progressed his robot-making abilities the pilots became more and more outdated, until eventually the madman stopped using them at all. Meteor Tech was a firm that specialized in making robots, and seemingly had no obvious or overt connection to Dr. Eggman. The closest they got to being in the news was when a meteor had almost hit the Earth several years ago. The overall situation was fairly obvious though, just from what both Judy and Nick had gathered.

Miles Prower was not who he seemed to be at first glance.

* * *

>   
>  To: Sonic  
>  From: Tails  
> 
> 
> Sonic,
> 
> Most of this is going to be old information for you, but you wanted me to write down exactly what it is that happened exactly as it happened, so here you go. After I left the police station, I just ran back to my air field. I took ZTA back to somewhere in the rainforest area before running the rest of the way. Don't even remember the stop. It was one of the old ones though, no chance for a robot there.
> 
> And yes, Sonic, I already had plans for what to do about my theory. Even though it would take me a while before I could act on them.
> 
> Anyways, that's when I called you. You know, 'begged for forgiveness' that I gave out your private number, heh, and then turned on the news. I tuned out the usual beginning fanfare, before sprawling out on my couch. I'd normally take this time to tinker with the Cyclone, but I thought I probably shouldn't, for some reason. Just one of those odd feelings, like there was something I should see. You know, a gut instinct.
> 
> "Welcome to ZNN news, I'm your host, Peter Moosebridge. Our leading story tonight is a recent development of a Meteor Tech SWAT-bot seemingly lashing out at a civilian. ZPD soon arrived on the scene. No more information is known at this time, but should be forthcoming once ZPD publishes its reports. Meteor Tech has only given basic reports, stating 'We aren't sure what caused the glitch, but are working hard to ensure that no other civilians are targeted the way this one was.' No injuries were reported, although a single video has made its way to ZNN regarding the robot rampage."
> 
> My blood ran cold.
> 
> Sure enough, there was a grainy video of an yellow-furred fox with a large single tail, essentially baiting the robot out of the station. I remember feeling so cocky, so confident that it couldn't really hurt me, and it showed. You couldn't hear what I told it, I think it was something like 'You couldn't hit the broad side of a mech, let alone me!'. I told the officers earlier that I ducked around cars to avoid getting hit. That's the truth. What I didn't tell them is that I didn't just duck around cars, but over, under, doing everything I could to annoy this thing until I could lead it to a safer area, where no others were. They somehow caught footage of me too, fortunately I turned the other way to continue to hide my face, yelling at everyone else to leave.
> 
> And then the damnation.
> 
> Whoever it was that filmed this, watched me pull a spindash off. In the middle of the street. The only good thing is they didn't get my face. They had filmed me from the back, which was good...I thought. I bumped its shins in, pulled out my wrench and went to town on this sucker. You could almost hear the clang-clang-clang sounds as I hit this thing's mid-section, where it's armor was strongest. I had already dented it from the spindash, they aren't much larger than me, only twice my size or so.
> 
> And then my blood ran cold again. If this was airing on ZNN, then the ZPD already had to know. I had given them enough information to satisfy them, but at the same time if they followed all the same tricks I would, and then followed by this video...
> 
> I sighed. Guess my days of anonymity were over. Oh well.

* * *

>   
>  To: Tails  
>  From: Sonic  
> 
> 
> Anonymity's overrated. On my way there now, just passed one of the mountain ranges, should be there in about three days if I keep this up.

* * *

>   
>  To: Sonic  
>  From: Tails  
> 
> 
> Sonic,
> 
> Says the guy who's still running. Darn, that means that I have to actually clean up for once.

* * *

>   
>  To: Tails  
>  From: Sonic  
> 
> 
> Oh no, the horror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sold on how to best use the email/texting format. Nor am I sold on how I portray Tails' this chapter. Feels too much like he was using his public facade even during his section. Actually there's like 95% of this chapter I don't like, regardless of how much editing I do. Chapters like this one are why I don't post much...


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3. Where things start going wrong. Or right, if you're me. Or other.

>   
>  To: Tails  
>  From: Sonic  
> 
> 
> Tails,
> 
> So what kind of data did you get off the core? I can't understand any of this info! By the way, I know what the little paperclip means. I'm not that awful with tech!
> 
> Just make sure that you don't trash too many robos. I don't think the police would take kindly to that, even if they (meaning the robots) do try to shoot at you. As for the video, like I said, don't worry about it. It only caught your back. If you're binding your tails (sounds painful by the way), then you should be good. Be there soon.
> 
> Stay safe,
> 
> Sonic

* * *

Sonic would never believe how relieved his messages make me. It's as if there's a giant weight that just goes away whenever he sends something. He doesn't send many, and regardless of how many times he tells me it's because he doesn't have time (which for him is actually reasonable), I'm fairly certain it's because he doesn't know how.

Every time I got one it simply made me remember all the good times, and knowing that he'd be here soon was worth the stress of everything. So, while I was in a good mood, I thought I should try working on the Tornado while I waited for the Cyclone's parts to finish loading and drying. I also thought I should try cleaning up, but alas, it just seemed to always slip my mind.

Then I remembered about homework. The dreaded curse of every college student ever. "Get that out of the way, or start working on the Tornado...argh, I should just finish it. Won't take too long," I said aloud. I usually talk to myself if I'm alone. I find that it helps me think. They say talking with yourself is a sign of insanity, but those people have never worked with Chaos energy the way I have. You would need every bit of assistance you can get if you start working with that.

I reached down for where my backpack should be, before remembering that I had never picked it back up at the police station. Darn it. I'd have to go back, and I doubt the professors would accept "A robot shot at me so I had to go to the police to give a statement and left my bag" as an excuse. Despite how real it is, and despite that I think it's obvious it was me on that video, and that literally everyone watches the news around here.

Especially since most of them were just waiting for me to make a mistake to kick me out. I was the youngest in every class, bar none, and while a few of them appreciated the fact that I questioned everything, many of them didn't. They were the leading engineers on Chaos theory and working with Chaos energy after all. I was pretty sure though me being a fox also had something to do with it, but that was par for the course here in the city, as I've found out over the last couple of years.

To run, or take the ZTA. ZTA would take about an hour or two, while running...I could be there in ten minutes if I hurried. By the way, Sonic, if you ever read these notes, which I sincerely hope you never do, I don't remember if I ever said thanks for teaching me your homing attack and boosting ability. If I didn't, thanks. I have now. I decided to run, because why not? The trip was fairly quick (heh), most of the buildings blurring out from me. It was sometime in the afternoon, probably around 15:00 or so, or 3:00 if you use twelve hour time. I chose mostly abandoned streets, and tried to slow down when there were other mammals. I still had this whole 'anonymity' thing I was trying to keep working. Not that I think it was.

Clawhauser, the front desk guy, was kind of surprised to see me come in about an hour and a half after I left the first time. I asked him if I could have my bag back, or at least get some of the books out. He said it was still in the evidence locker because of the wrench, but he might be able to fan-dangle something with the Chief of Police so I can at least grab my books. I wanted the entire bag, as I was stupid enough to put my two Chaos Emeralds in there, but it was no use fighting it. As long as they didn't know the combination to the locks, they wouldn't even be able to analyze them.

That's what happens when you make lock boxes out of the Doom's Comet after having it be taken out by the Eclipse Cannon and a Chaos Empowered Form. The boxes were practically immune to all types of radiation, which is good, because nothing can get in, or out. This includes light, x-rays, even neutrinos the one time I asked GUN about those. How Black Doom managed to get his comet immune to neutrinos, I wish I knew, considering that conventional science says those things go through everything.

If any one ever says that the Chaos Emeralds aren't dangerous, they haven't hung out with us enough. They're like magnets that just attract trouble. Every. Single. Time.

The rather large cheetah said something into the radio, and then looked back at me with a sad smile. "The Chief wants to talk to you directly."

Well. That wasn't a good sign. I smiled and nodded and pretended that everything was good. I had my ID on me, and my phone if things ever went too south. Maybe I was just paranoid because of the things Sonic went through when GUN was chasing after him. Admittedly, after that entire experience six years ago, I think my paranoia is perfectly justified.

"Miles Prower here to see you, sir," Clawhauser introduced me into the room. It was a small room. A desk, a couple of chairs, some paintings, didn't really look like much. Most of the desk was covered by a computer, and a giant cape buffalo of a being was sitting behind it.

"Dismissed, Clawhauser. Come in Mr. Prower, we have much to discuss." His voice was thick and deep, and I could tell that this was not someone that would appreciate being swerved around corners the way I'd gotten used to doing as soon as I got used to this city. I went on in and sat on one of the chairs, looking every bit as serious as he. I'm not sure if I managed it, considering that I sunk like four inches into the seat, which had to be some kind of record. Makes me wonder if that fox officer had to deal with this.

Moments passed by in silence before he sighed, and looked me directly in the eye. Some people say that having walking, talking animals look you in the eye makes you feel strange, but they have never looked at a water buffalo in the same way. Every instinct of me was telling me to run. At the same time, every instinct was telling me I was fine, because I had over ten rings on my person. It was an odd experience.

"Do you know why you're here, Mr. Prower." That's the way he phrased it. Not a question, but a statement. How he managed to do it as a question, I don't think I'd ever managed to figure out. He controlled the inflections in his voice perfectly.

"To get my bag back so I can finish my homework?" I had asked in retaliation. His nose flared, and I could tell I just made an oopsie. Oh well, I've hung out with Knuckles enough to be able to get out of this just fine.

"You're here because you are the lead suspect in the prairie road shootout."

Wait, I was? Wow, writing things down really does help people remember them! "Wait, I am?"

"We have multiple witnesses stating that the security robot activated on you, announced you as Priority Target Two, and started firing. We also have witnesses stating that you lead the thing on a merry chase down Prairie, eventually culminating in it's wreckage. Do you know what you did wrong, Miles?"

"Didn't run to get the police?"

"Exactly. That is our job, Prower. And because you took a wrench to the CPU core, we can't get any data off of it, so we don't know what went wrong. So tell me, Miles...why did you think it was a good idea to stay?"

"I'm assuming you want me to be honest, here."

Bogo, as I could read off his nameplate, glared at me for a moment. "That would be ideal, yes," he said carefully, every word measured. If he measured it any more, he might be able to take on Shadow in a word per meaning contest.

"Because someone had to stand up, and I was in no danger. By leading it out of the station, I gave enough time for everyone else to clear out. Sounds like a win to me."

"No danger!? Prower, you are a civilian!"

"Military contractor, actually."

"...I'm sorry?" Ooh, he hadn't expected that. I wasn't surprised though. Not many people knew about that contract, seeing as how it was under 'Tails' and not 'Miles Prower'. It's handy having a nickname everyone uses and assumes it's my real name. Seriously, my name is Miles Prower. First name Miles, nickname Tails, last name Prower. I'm not ashamed of the pun. Anymore.

"I'm a military contractor. Contract W-82457. Look it up when you get a chance. Names have been redacted, because GUN had to publish it, but I assure you, I'm on there."

"That's a weapons contract, not a personnel contract. And aren't you too young for a contractor?"

I whistled in my head. This guy knew what those GUN acronyms actually stood for!? That's...actually really impressive. I only learned that once Shadow told me what his contract was under. (P-742369, for those concerned. Yeah, GUN doesn't have much imagination.) I mean, the meanings are pretty obvious in hindsight, but still.

"True, but it gives me clearance to deal with any weapons concerning a certain human. That's also how the age limit was worked around, considering how often the human's come up recently. The robot was Meteor Tech."

Bogo narrowed his eyes at me, "Meteor Tech's owners have all been cleared after the Arks of the Cosmos incident."

"Yes, but not their CFO, who in turn has a large amount of clout with, to the point of essentially being, their board of directors and CEO."

"Dr. Ovi Kintobor?"

I wonder if Bogo ever realized how much that namedrop made me want to gag. There's a history to that name, and it's a history that Sonic and Robotnik both know about but won't tell me, and I'm not going to pry into that. That's Sonic's business, not mine. But he told me stories about Kintobor. Most of them were good.

Not all of them.

"Yeah. There's not a lot of evidence there, but Kintobor has another name. One he himself created, ten years ago. Robotnik. We call him Eggman." It was the closest I had ever come to just outing myself, and it was obvious that the Chief, who definitely wasn't stupid, didn't even look surprised. Huh, guess he already knew. There were very few people who knew our favorite nickname for Eggman. Most people are still scared of him, and to be honest, I don't blame them. They can't fight him the way we can. It's only one of the many reasons we choose to stay and fight. Someone has to stand up to him. And we're going to be the first ones to stand.

"I see. Two more questions then, before you leave. One; you've been labeled as missing for the last two years. Why? And Two; what's in the lock boxes? If you refuse to say, it would be very easy to get a subpoena on possible evidence."

He had me backed to a corner. Wow. Well done, Mr. Cape Buffalo. Oh well, I had already outed myself earlier, and as much as I didn't like throwing around my name, it was hard to avoid doing so. I paused for a moment to think of my answer. I know why I had disappeared; for the same reason Sonic was attempting to keep a low profile. We didn't know where Eggman was, and he could pop up at any time. So we needed to be ready. The last time the madman had two years to set things up he nearly destroyed the world. Twice. In a year. There's a reason there's an entire section of GUN dedicated to keeping track of the megalomaniac. Hadn't had much success though, from what I've heard.

"To keep Eggman off our trail. If we split up, then we can both pay attention to global news outlets, and stop him before he would do more damage in case one of us is on the other side of the planet. I also wanted to go to school, because those movies don't like paying."

Bogo blinked at me. Don't think he was expecting that. Neither would I, really. See, Sonic and Tails are nicknames, (yes, I have an idea what Sonic's real name is, and no, I'm not going to say it) and thus even though they represent us we aren't to copyright or trademark nicknames. Because of that, they make just enough changes that they're allowed to say it's 'based on a true story' without paying a cent to us. Fortunately Sonic managed to get...something, from them. It's not much, but it's enough to be able to live off of assuming you live frugally. That's what the GUN contract is for; I have to afford parts somehow.

"As for number two; the Cyan and Yellow Chaos Emeralds. It's made from the material left over from when Doom's Comet blew up, which is why nothing you can use can analyze what's in it. Seven of those lock boxes were made, and each one contains an emerald. Only one should be opened at a time."

"What's the combination?"

"For mine? One Nine Nine Two One One Two Four."

"Fine. Come with me to get your bag. You're going to prove it," Bogo said, walking out quickly and slamming the door behind him. I had already walked out in front of him, and he kept me there. I could see the eyes of the officers as they watched me curiously, being escorted through the building by their boss. I passed Hopps' and Wilde's cubicle, and heard them talking about some of the things I had said. I wasn't able to stay long enough to see if they were on the right track, so I had to assume they were. I gave them the date of Sonic's first appearance, and the E-5400 data. If they're as smart as they are, and considering how Nick completely schooled me earlier, they should be able to figure it out.

Good. Three groups were better than just two. Even if one of them is just a few mammals, and the other is an intergovernmental military organization with an acronym labeled after a weapon of all things.

We stopped in front of a grey room filled with shelves. An evidence locker. I could see my bag there, with both of the lock boxes sitting outside, tightly shut. As soon as the door was open, I rushed in to grab my preferred emerald; the yellow one. The same color as my fur actually. I liked it over the other ones not just because of that, but because of the two that I was given access to, the yellow emerald wasn't the one that caused...everything. Unlike the turquoise one.

"Open it." Not one for mincing words, was he? I thought about attempting a 'my precious' joke in there, but I think it would've been lost on him. Sonic would've done it though. Oh well, I'd have to settle for merely thinking it. I entered the combination, and as soon as the last digit popped into the place there was a small lock sound. I popped open the lid and sure enough, sat in the middle of an emerald shaped cushion, was the Yellow Chaos Emerald. It glowed with an ominous light, showering both me and the buffalo with its light. If you weren't used to it, it could definitely unnerve some people.

We kept the Emeralds separated on purpose. I had two, one for research and one for safekeeping. GUN had one, Sonic had one, Knuckles had one, Shadow had one. We don't know where the seventh one is, but we have a fairly good idea that it's in Eggman's hands. If the good guys don't have it, it's safe to say the bad guys do. That's just how Chaos works, right? And if worse comes to worse, Knuckles still is the Guardian of the Master Emerald, so we have that in our back pocket.

"Leave then. And don't get into any more trouble, I don't want to see you in here," Bogo said, handing me my bag. It was a comfortable weight on my back, and I relocked the emerald and tossed them both in. I left without another sound.

* * *

"Hopps, Wilde! My office, now!" Bogo shouted over the mass of cubicles and officers. Nick sighed, and looked over to his coffee cup, still only half full.

"Tastes like crap, but it'll have to wait. Come on Carrots, let's go see what buffalo-butt wants," he said sadly, wistfully wishing that he could take the coffee in with him. It had been a longstanding rule of the ZPD; no food or drinks in the Chief's office. As long as you cleaned your area up, no one cared what you ate in your own cubicle.

"Right. Save this, and let's go!" Judy said, hopping off her chair. The walk to the Police Chief's office was rather silent between the two, listening as they were to the other conversations between the officer's. It was a common hobby of theirs, having spent far too long on boring patrols where nothing happened. Judy's ears were more sensitive to the sounds of everyone around them, but Nick's directional hearing was slightly better. It gave them an advantage in almost every situation.

"Fangmeyer and Delgato have a bet going that we're going to get fired...again. Want to make them ante up?" Nick asked slyly. Judy rolled her eyes, but went with it. It wasn't her business what the other officer's did. Or wasted money on. She didn't approve of it, but it's not like that was going to ever stop them. Besides, this way she could get a good laugh out of it later on in the night.

"Oh no, Chief Bogo has called us to his office. I hope we are not fired, Officer Wilde," Judy called out suspiciously loud, pausing after every word, as if reading from a bad script.

"I hope so too, Officer Hopps, that would be bad for all of us," Nick replied in the exact same way. The wolf and tiger blushed, the redness just barely showing through their facial fur, and they ducked back into one of their cubicles, probably to continue 'discussing' things.

"Think they'll ever learn?" Judy asked, returning back to her normal voice.

"Nah. They aren't the type."

Judy knocked on the door, and was answered by a loud, flat 'Come in'. She tried to reach for the doorknob, and had to end up jumping up to grab it as it was just barely out of reach. Nick rolled his eyes and pushed the door open. "Hopps, Wilde, take a seat," the Chief said, motioning to the two chairs that stood side by side. Nick motioned for Judy to take one as he walked passed and took the other. The chairs here were made for larger mammals, and they could barely fit in the chair. Nick sunk a couple of inches as his seat was prone to doing.

"What do you think of the Prairie Road outing," His tone was flat, and he stared out of his glasses towards the other two. They looked at each other for a moment, before Nick motioned for Judy to start.

"If you let us sir, we can finish up our reports ASAP and get them -"

"I don't care about the reports, Hopps. I care to know what you think. Why didn't you arrest Prower?"

"Sir, I don't think he did it on purpose. I think it was self-defense, and what he says concludes that," Judy started.

"You think that it was self-defense. Explain."

Nick started talking immediately, following up on his partner's thoughts, "Bullet shells littered the street sir. We know Prower couldn't have done it, seeing as how his bag was too small for that kind of firepower. They were decent sized shells too, the kind of that a robot could carry, but a mammal that size couldn't."

"I see. Is that your only reasoning?"

"No sir. He had wounds on his legs, but appeared to be walking fine. I dressed them as best as I could, but they were more in line with running away then attacking," Judy finished. Bogo always wondered how these two in particular managed to do that. One started a thought, and the other finished it. He had heard of some twins that were capable of doing the same thing, or of old partners or couples. Either way, it sometimes annoyed him how sometimes he would focus on one, only to have to turn and stare at the second one, and then have to turn back to the first in only a few seconds.

"He was wounded?"

"Bleeding sir, mostly on his lower legs."

"I see. Why didn't you call for medical personnel?"

"He appeared to be fine, and the blood was mostly dry by the time we got there. When I washed it away, there wasn't anything wrong."

Bogo blinked at them behind his glasses. "Hmm-mm," he grunted out. He had a feeling that'd be in the reports. 'Great,' he thought, 'Another report from these two I'm going to have to go and redact almost everything. Again.' "Very well. What do you two think of Prower?"

Nick started first, "Seems like a good kid. Studies hard, a bit paranoid though, carrying around a wrench like he does. Bit of a Tails' fan though." Judy nodded her agreement.

Bogo stared at them for another few seconds. "Prower was here five minutes ago. I assume you two remember your confidentiality agreements?" The two nodded, and the buffalo continued, "Good, consider this case under them as well. I would assume that Miles would not be a Tails' fan, as he doesn't appear that narcissistic to me. You are to treat him as any other suspect that you would find on the street. If he does anything wrong again, take him in."

He watched them as they went over this information in their heads, and as one Nick reached into his pocket, pulled out a five dollar bill from his wallet, and handed it to Judy, who pocketed it without looking away from the Chief.

"I'm going to assume I did not just see what I just saw. Get what you can out of the data core, but close the case."

"But, sir, what about th-"

"Close. The. Case."

"Yes sir." They could tell a dismissal when they had heard one. They hopped on down out of their chairs, and walked towards the door. They could already see Bogo opening up what part of the reports they had done, and starting to underline or bold certain text that they knew would just complicate matters.

"Cursed Kitsune..." Nick heard Bogo mutter. His ears flicked back. He had never even heard of that before. He turned around, and although he could still hear the muttering, Bogo's mouth wasn't open. In fact, it looked as if he was concentrating fully on his computer screen. Nick just closed the door, hearing the whispering stop shortly afterwards. He had never even heard of a Kitsune.

"Hey Carrots...did you hear buffalo-butt say anything just now? Something about a Kitsune?" Nick asked. Judy looked over in surprise, her amethyst eyes wide and inquisitive.

"No...he didn't say anything. Just told us to close the case. Something wrong?" Judy asked. Nick shook his head, and put his sly face back on. That was something that he would worry about later. Although if Judy couldn't hear it, why could he? His ears weren't bad, but they weren't a rabbits. He sighed internally, and then continued to do what was expected from him every time they left the Chief's office.

"So, you still have a date with that bunny tonight?" Nick asked, grinning over at his partner. By closing the case the way they had, with a mandate, they could reopen it later, but only with the Chief's permission. Already they could see the Chief's computer going over their reports, redacting certain elements.

"No, you made sure of that. Does it ever feel like we're cursed?"

"Just asking, Carrots. Want to go see a movie? We're off tomorrow."

"Hmm...sure. What movie? And you haven't answered my question yet."

"I'm thinking a Sonic and Tails marathon. And yes, Carrots, we're cursed. Or rather you're cursed with having me."

"That's hardly a curse, Nick. Start with Adventure in Station Square?"

"Aw, but then you'd miss the best one; Angel Island!"

* * *

>   
> To: Sonic  
> From: Tails  
> 
> 
> Sonic,
> 
> Have you ever felt you did such a bad job at keeping a secret you wonder why you ever kept it at all?

* * *

>   
> To: Tails  
> From: Sonic  
> 
> 
> All the time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. That's...different. I actually like this chapter, amazingly, except for Tails' interaction with Bogo. Tails in first person is surprisingly difficult to write. Two was a struggle to edit, this was a breeze. Also finally, the Chaos emeralds showed up. Well, one of them at least. There is a plan, and there is a reason for just about everything, even if it is because "the author needed it to." Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter.
> 
> Also I apologize if I don't get around to responding to every review right away; I'll get around to it, I swear. It just...takes me a while. Thanks for reading. Until next time.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really short chapter this time. To make up for it, there's going to be a longer chapter next week. I blame time constraints, and various other factors. Well, I started at 2800...ended up being 4200. You know, I should really try to stop editing...

Judy watched comfortably on the couch as Nick struggled to find the right disc. She had managed to 'convince' Nick to just start the movies at the beginning, and since her place didn't have a TV...or a couch...or just about anything, really, they were forced to watch them over at Nick's apartment. It had been obvious the tod hadn't had time to clean up or was actually planning anything, and the idea to watch the movies had been a complete spur of the moment. It had been hours since they started, and she had snuggled deeply into some blankets as Nick fished around for the next one. They had just finished 'Project Chaos'. "Hey Carrots, come off the couch for a second and help me look. I know I have ARK somewhere around here," Nick asked, crawling underneath his TV stand.

She took one last longing look towards the fox, his tail standing up in the air, as she dutifully scrambled her way out of the covers, which took her far too long than it should have, and jumped down onto the vulpine's back, jumping up quickly to grab the disc, from somewhere near the top of the stand. "Ow. Carrots, was that necessary?" Nick asked as he bumped his head on the stand above him, not expecting the sudden weight. She didn't weigh much, but having anyone of any size suddenly jump on you would do that to the best of mammals.

"Yep. That's what you get for not taking care of the paperwork. By the way, I found it," Judy said, hopping back onto the couch, sinking a good six inches in, and re-scrambling back into the covers. It was shortly before eleven at night, and they didn't have work tomorrow, so they could just spend the entire day doing nothing. To Nick, nothing better. To Judy, nothing more insane.

"Sly bunny..." Nick whispered as he massaged his back before putting on the movie. He didn't know if Judy had figured out his reasoning for watching these over again; they were mostly aimed at children to explain the happenings from the last several years. He wanted to watch them to see what Miles was talking about when he said that they got them mostly wrong. So far from what he had seen they seemed closer to documentaries than movies, with the exception of Project Chaos, which was also when the series had its turn, and suddenly focused more on the story and acting of the characters than the events the previous ones had.

"Dumb fox."

The movies had a general premise that they rarely strayed from. Robotnik would come in, terrorize the population in some way, and Sonic and Tails would come in and save the day. Some, like Angel Island, introduced a third member of the team, Knuckles. Nick took a moment to look out the window. It had been nearly four years since this movie, about the ARK incident, had been released. Six years since he remembered the initial broadcast from Robotnik, threatening the world with destruction. It was one of those unforgettable days, the one that's burned into the mind, to be remembered with perfect clarity every time.

He still recalled exactly what he was doing. He had hustled a good six hundred from some poor skunk for some kind of really shady car. He had bought the car legally, of course, but it was a work. Even Finnick, handy mechanic that he was, wasn't able to fix it at all, not without more parts. So he decided to cut his losses and just sell the sucker, and even made a handy profit off it. As soon as he stepped into the cafe, everyone's eyes were on the TV, where they saw Dr. Robotnik's message, complete with the Eclipse Cannon. Nick had looked out the window immediately, and spotted the glowing green light as it hit its target.

Even now, the moon was still half gone.

"Hey, Carrots..."

"Hmm?"

"What do you say to calling Miles over here and see if he wants to finish watching these?"

Judy thought about it for a moment. Despite what her fox partner sometimes thought, she knew that he did everything for a reason. Somethings, like this, were to do some field research that he wasn't 'allowed' to do on the job. "Do you have his number?"

He winced. "Uh...I don't. Just an idea then."

Judy smiled predatorially at her partner. It was an odd look to see on the rabbit, but it was one he had seen a couple of times. It was a cross between her smug look, a sarcastic-filled face, and just a hint of expectation. His ears perked up a bit; she only did that when she knew something he didn't. Those times were few and far between, and each time it reminded him to never try to cross Judy Hopps.

"Give me my phone," she asked, holding out her paw for it. It had been buried deep within the covers, and sometime during Angel Island Nick found it and put it off to the side, away from the rabbit. He saw an opportunity to try and tease her, but decided against it. Then thought better of it and went for it anyways. A small shock went through his system, one that he barely noticed.

"And what's the magic word?"

"Give me my phone, Nick."

He held the phone out over the couch, far out of her reach. Seeing that, it didn't stop her from trying to grab it anyways, stretching as far as she could, her face right next to his. "You haven't said the magic word yet!" Nick said, teasing the poor bunny even as she reached for it. A warm wet feeling shot through his cheek and he froze, trying to figure out what his bunny had just done, even as she reached over effortlessly and plucked the phone out of his hands. 'Did she just...lick me!?'

He looked over and she was already dialing a number, and waiting for the person on the other end to pick up, a smug look of victory crossing her face. "What was that for, Carrots?" he asked. He reached up, expecting to find the wet spot, only to find complete dryness. Judy looked at him from her side, her grin slowly easing to a face of worry. Then Miles picked up.

* * *

I really should've thought better about grabbing that. My phone doesn't ring often; most people just send me texts or emails. Especially because they realize that I could be three feet underneath a heavy red biplane that's leaking a fluid of some variety, pretty sure it was oil, when they call and startle me. Well, I was already startled, covered in oil, and my phone was still ringing to the tune of "Live and Learn". My general ringtone, for numbers I don't know. I hear that tone even less often.

"Miles," I had answered, taking off my gloves. Oil was always a pain in the tail to work with, but fortunately that's why I wear gloves. Well, that, and to not touch the Chaos Emeralds. Never grab one of them directly. The oil had stuck two of the big hairs on my head together, and I tried to separate them before giving it up. Black and yellow, wonderful. I'm a bee now. Made me wonder if Charmy was feeling any better after his little escapade a few years ago.

"Hi Miles, this is Judy Hopps," came a voice from the other side that I was definitely sure I shouldn't have been hearing. How did they get the number, for one, and two, why were they calling? I was ninety percent sure I hadn't given out my phone number (they completely forgot to ask for it, just wanting Sonic's instead.), and that I had completed everything they wanted to ask me earlier in the day.

"Oh, hi officer! What's up? Need to ask a few questions? You're working kind of late!" I tried to say casually. I struggled to look at a clock. 11:10 pm. Definitely late night shift if they were still working. Or would that be graveyard? I tried to explain it once to Knuckles, who was used to a twenty four hour shift, every day, for every year. Somehow he managed to get me confused enough to where I'm still not sure anymore.

"No, no, just wanted to ask if you wanted to watch a movie or two. Or three."

I blinked. Not going to lie, it took me a few seconds for my brain to reboot. There was a reason I like working on mechanical things. "Um...officer? I'm pretty sure it's illegal to fraternize with a possible suspect."

I could just hear her blush on her end. "That's not- Nick and I are just watching a bunch of movies and thought you know, maybe we'd invite you along."

Too easy. Too easy. Way too easy. "Uh...maybe. Kind of busy at the moment, not sure when I'd be done. What movies?" I thanked Chaos that I avoided that landmine. Didn't want to be responsible for death by embarrassment. Then I took another look at the Tornado, and slid underneath it again, loosening a few of the screws as I went, only to have a deluge of water spill all over me. Thanks, Tornado.

"The Sonic and Tails movies."

Oh. Oh I see what they were doing. They wanted to know what exactly it is those films did wrong. Besides, well, everything. "Sorry officers, I'm going to have to say no. I still have some homework I need to do and I do have class tomorrow." Wait, I did? I quickly checked my schedule that I loaded into my watch. 10 am, Chaos Engineering 225 lab. Huh, what do you know. I don't usually remember my schedule, I have an automatic tracking program on my watch that tells me when I need to be in class, as well as which class, and brings up my notes to it. Made it easier to work on my planes or Chaos projects.

"Oh. Sorry for bothering you then," came the voice on the other end, as she abruptly hung up. Maybe I did have luck with bunnies, but the wrong end of the luck spectrum. As if to reinforce the idea, the Tornado moved slightly, as another sludge filled part opened up to leak all over me. It's a good thing I'm used to this and wear overalls...

* * *

Judy didn't know what time she had fallen asleep. She remembered watching a bit on the interplanetary amusement park, but then she just...slept. Sunlight streamed in through the window to Nick's apartment, highlighting the couch and its tens of pounds of blankets and covers. A burrow, one might say. She yawned and stretched. She was still in her day clothes, which means she hadn't changed yet. She looked around for a clock and stumbled upon her phone. Eight. In the morning. This was late for her, but it wasn't until at least four that she went to sleep...

Well, she had woken up and she wasn't going to get back to sleep anytime soon. That's just how her body worked. Nick on the other hand would probably still be sleeping for a while. The TV was off, so at least he had stayed awake long enough to do that, and was probably in bed. She smiled and set about making herself breakfast. Judy stayed overnight enough times to finally make Nick break down and start buying rabbit friendly food. That was before she had realized that foxes were omnivores, and could almost eat anything.

She set up the coffee maker, knowing that even if Nick woke up, he wouldn't wake up without coffee. Such was the way of the nocturnal, she thought. It certainly made overnight patrols or stakeouts much easier. Even if that meant who bought the coffee switched. Rabbits weren't meant for nighttime raiding. She was lost in thought for a while before she heard the door open, and she saw her red fox partner, yawning and stretching, shirtless and barely wearing underwear, practically crawl out of his room. She smiled again, and waited for Nick to realize where he was, counting the seconds in her head.

It didn't take very long. "Ju-Carrots!?" he said suddenly, diving back into his room. She could hear the quick shuffle of clothes being put on.

"Morning Nick! What a view right?" Judy laughed, acting as cheerful as possible. After what happened last night, that Nick had felt something that she didn't do, she was worried about him, and even though he said not to worry, it was Nick after all, she still wanted to let him know she didn't think he was insane. She knew that he wasn't a morning person, but when he smelled coffee he woke up. A few seconds later a fully dressed Nick Wilde stepped out, looking for all the world that he had been awake the entire time. Honestly, she wished she could do something like that at will. Every time Nick woke her up in her pajamas it always took her a few minutes to get back to normalcy.

"...Sly bunny," he whispered as he poured himself some coffee. Judy grinned before turning back to the carrot eggs she had cooking. She didn't eat the eggs herself, being herbivorous, although Nick never complained about the carrot leftover...too much... when he grabbed her plate to finish everything off.

* * *

> To: Sonic  
>  From: Tails  
> 
> 
> Sonic,
> 
> I know you hate hearing the things I do, well after I've already done them, but I figure in this case you'll get a laugh out of it. So will GUN, or whoever else is reading these. But I had to figure something out. So I pulled an early version of you.
> 
> That's right, I disguised myself and broke into a security robot's CPU core.
> 
> So after my phone call from the officers in an attempt to learn about all the stuff we put up with, I decided to quickly fix the Tornado (simply needed a power cycle, once I resealed everything and filled all the various fluids. That was a relief!) and head to bed. So the next day I woke up early and went to a twenty four hour office building. The people there don't know me (It's manned by a raccoon, oddly enough.) but it worked for what I needed.
> 
> I put on a set of overalls, with Miles on the nametag. Remember when Knuckles got me those way back when? I needed to clean them before I headed out, but they are still useful. If only I knew then what I would end up doing with them. So I walked into the building, and said, as calmly as I could, "Hi. Graveyard shift from earlier called me in to take a look at the robot, something about it not starting up right." The place had one, deactivated in the corner. The raccoon was busy reading some kind of magazine, looked up for five seconds, shrugged, and motioned me to go on.
> 
> Ok, so yeah it's illegal. But it was for a good cause, I swear! Anyway, I brought in my stuff and went to work. First, I tried to diagnose what the actual problem was (There was a glitch in the Operations center because of a failed update. Guess which update? Apparently some person decided it would be fun to restart the wireless router right when it started connecting.) then I took a look around for that update and schematics. Sure enough, the robot looked clean, even on the inside. But then I noticed a hidden file that required a password. Lucky we know Eggman so well. "Eggman" isn't exactly the safest password. And there were the real schematics.
> 
> These things are bruisers, Sonic. 45 caliber machine guns, three on each arm, a fusion lance in the torso, and a few extra side slots for missiles, these things are war machines. And they thought Zootopia was supposed to be safe.
> 
> The update file was small, barely five megabytes. All it contained was a picture of you, me, and everyone else. The second it saw one of us, it would execute the file with the password. The file, when executed, would turn off the safety features and turn on total war. The kicker? Meteor Tech didn't publish the update. The server picked up only an IP address, which is worthless. I'm gonna try tracking it anyways, but not really a lot of hope for that. So I headed back to my place to try anyways. But the file did give all the correct information for an update from Meteor Tech, so it's definitely someone there, or at least someone with insider information, and you and I can both guess who.

* * *

> To: Tails  
>  From: Sonic  
> 
> 
> Tails,
> 
> You pulled an earlier me. I remember those days...I suppose this is the part where I act like a parent and try to tell you not to do it again? As for Meteor Tech, Eggman's not technically apart of it. We both know he is, but no one can prove a thing. Stay safe, kiddo. I'll be there soon. I'm pushing the sound barrier now.

* * *

> To: Sonic  
>  From: Tails  
> 
> 
> Sonic,
> 
> I know, I shouldn't have. But now we can at least warn everyone else to avoid these robots. Although I pity the ones that find Knuckles or Amy.

* * *

> To: Everyone (DL-All)  
>  From: Tails  
> 
> 
> Everyone,
> 
> 'Someone' hacked Meteor Tech to put out an update to their E-5400 series, targeting all of us. Be careful, and try not to be seen by them. They have top of the line scanning software, which is good, as we don't have to worry about those who look like us, but disguises don't work.
> 
> Stay safe,  
>  Tails

* * *

"So those robots. Think they're any good?" Nick started cautiously. Finnick, a small fennec fox stared at him for a couple of moments before laughing uproariously. They had just recently passed one of the many advertisements for them, and Nick wasn't sure what his old friend thought of them.

"Hell no, those thing's suck! Can't even tell when someone's stealing shit in front of 'em!" Finnick said back. Nick grinned at the behavior of his littlest friend.

Judy and he had the day off. After a breakfast, don't tell her but it was really good, she went back to her place. Why, Nick didn't know, but he suspected it was to get some sleep. But he decided to see if he couldn't find Finnick, one of his older friends from before he joined the ZPD. He found him alright, sitting in his van, shades on, trying to look as badass as he could while being barely two feet tall. Nick would never tell him to his face, for fear of getting hit with a baseball bat, but he was adorable.

"Why? I heard about that case with the robo goin' crazy. Said some fox took it out."

"Took it out with a wrench. Busted it up badly enough we can't get anything out of it."

"He took out a robo...with a wrench? How hardcore is this guy? Late twenties or so?"

"Think late teens."

"Wow. I'd hate to be kept next to that guy in the old slammer. Don't those cores have some kind of black box feature? Can't you just grab that?"

Nick stared at his friend. Finnick had always been interested in mechanics, that's why he lived in a van. The fox probably knew more about cars and engine than most people did, and if anything he could probably figure out what made the robots tick. While he was no supposed Miles, he was fairly good, and knew all kinds of workarounds to force things to work. "A black box? You think?"

"Just what I heard. I think you blue birds know more about that shit than I do. But probably, most cars contain one nowadays that has all kinds of troubleshooting info on it. They send it back to the company when something goes wrong."

"Huh. Thanks Finnick, you might've just helped a lot."

"No problem Nicky. Just remember that if you ever have to bring me in!" Finnick chuckled, and pumped up the bass, bringing the entire van into moving in place. Nick just relaxed back, and let the (un)-soothing music flow over him.

* * *

So despite my telling Sonic I would only do one illegal thing per day, I tried to test my luck on two. Though the second one couldn't be traced back to me anytime soon. It was a fairly simple hack; just a reversion to the update code. I had tried to hack into the E-5400's update servers and give an update of my own. The deliverable was simple, just an update saying to switch to the previous version, before it had the hidden file and the scan-exclusive targets. They'd still have the weapons on them, but at least they wouldn't be as dangerous. Hopefully.

I finished that part in under thirty minutes, because I already had a usable code portion from the other robot's update that I got that morning. Programmer's do stuff like that all the time and take each other's code. It's a gentleman's agreement, one that I fully intended to take advantage of. My first problem was a relayed error code. Wrong server ID, it told me. That would be the hardest part; I would have to push this update to Meteor Tech's servers without them knowing, and then finalize it. At least, normally it would have been the hardest part. But there was a backdoor I had stumbled upon a few years ago, which had never been removed. I always wondered why, but now I think I figured it out.

I tried various ID's, and eventually stumbled upon one that worked. I had to mark the update as a Critical update, but it was barely two kilobytes. Most robots wouldn't even need to restart for it to take effect, which was handy, because they were connected almost all the time. A Critical update would send up some red flags, but it would guarantee that most of the robots would grab the update, and then they'd have to run a reversion on that, which would take at least a few days. It would give me some time to think of something a bit more permanent, but there were other things I had to finish.

Now for the last, and quite possibly worst part, because of how much of a dead end it was. Tracking that IP address. It didn't take me very long to realize that it came from a proxy, but get this; the proxy was still active. So most proxies are simple bounce receptacles, they take an address and send messages to another IP. Most people shut down their proxies if they aren't using them, because using them slows down their internet, which no one wants. But this one was still active, so all I had to do is basically ask it where it led to, and spat out another IP address. One from Zootopia.

My blood ran cold. I hoped that this one was a proxy too. All that would mean is that someone's computer in Zootopia was compromised, and that was fairly common. But this one wasn't a proxy, and kept spitting out the same address. And that meant only one thing, and I tried desperately to come up with other explanations, but in the end the meaning was clear.

Eggman was in Zootopia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And finally the main plot starts. I'm aware that there's a hell of a lot more to proxies and tracking IP addresses than what I said, but I didn't want to get too technical, so I instead 'summarized' it. And yes, my version of proxies act different than how actual proxies act. (Similar in function, dissimilar in how they work). Thanks for reading. Also, I've been told that a lot of people here prefer smaller paragraphs to the large chunks I leave them in. Should I leave them in smaller paragraphs, if they're a bit harder to follow, or keep putting them in the larger paragraphs? Until next time.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 5. This is a big one, mostly because I couldn't find a good cutting off point.

Judy and Nick walked back to their cubicle in silence. It wasn't unusual for them, although Nick's silence was slightly out of character. And an out of character Nick usually meant only a couple of things. They had already gotten their assignment from Chief Bogo earlier ("Patrol.") but it wasn't something that would put him in silence.

"Berry for your thoughts?" Judy asked. Nick startled for a minute before shaking his head, his smirk replacing his thinking expression.

" _A_ berry, Carrots? My thoughts are worth a lot more than a single measly berry."

"Just wondering what's got you in such a thoughtful mood. Can't be the assignment."

"No, it's not. You know how Bogo forced us to close the robot case earlier? I think the lab boys overlooked something."

"Don't they have the blueprints for those things? How would you know something they don't?"

"It's something from Finnick. He told me that robots like that have what's called a black box," Nick explained. At Judy's inquisitive look he continued, "A black box is-"

"I know what a black box is, but wouldn't that be in the blueprints?"

"It should be. I'm just sending an email down there to try and take a look at it if it's still open for them."

Judy shrugged. Nick had certainly taken to trying to solve this case in particular. Usually it was she that was trying to get to the bottom of things, but if Nick was going to try hard on this one, she wasn't going to say no. Besides, she wanted more information too. Just because Bogo said the case was closed doesn't mean the case was closed!

"Ok. I'll go warm up the cruiser," Judy said as she hopped down and headed to the garage. Their car, a large police cruiser that was about two times her height easy, lay where it always did, in the corner farthest from the doors. When they had first gotten it, Nick had to help her get into the seat every time. Now though she could jump up with ease, knowing exactly where to land without accidentally messing something up. It wasn't exactly meant for a mammal of her size.

She had barely started it up when her phone rang with a text. She looked around for Nick first before looking down at it; it wouldn't be the first time he had tried to surprise her like that. An unknown number, but with an attachment.

"Here's the info from the data dump you asked for." She could barely hold in her glee as she forwarded it to the lab boys. Nick and she had had similar ideas. While his was to go for the black box in the CPU core, her idea was to head straight for Meteor Tech itself. They didn't make a habit of handing out confidential information like this, but then again, none of this was technically confidential.

And she had managed it without revealing that she was a police officer...or that she didn't have a warrant. Again, technically true. An off-duty cop isn't a cop at the moment.

Nick opened the door and hopped in with a small whoosh as the air left the seat. "Ok, that's done Carrots. Come on, let's go," he said, quickly putting on some aviator sunglasses.

Judy rolled her eyes and smiled, and quickly drove out into the city of Zootopia. Their patrol pattern was pretty simple; go out onto a street, park there for a bit, look for bad guys, go out onto another street, park there for a while, and then leave for another place. Originally, they weren't supposed to park and just keep driving, but then the budget got cut for gas. They had barely arrived at their assigned location before a radio came in. "Cruiser 247, this is Dispatch. Come in Cruiser 247." As usual, there was a rush between both Nick and Judy as they tried to answer it.

"Cruiser 247, officer Hopps, over!" Judy called, barely hanging on the radio as Nick had somehow fallen onto the floor.

"Suspicious activity way out there, at 5434 Cedar Lane, out past the rainforest district. Normally we'd have closer vehicles out there but they're all tied up at the moment. Also Chief tells me that if you need backup call immediately, over," Clawhauser said, his voice somewhat breaking up but still able to be heard clearly. Somehow.

"That's a 10-4 Dispatch! Cruiser 247 on our way! ...Over!" Judy said, putting the radio back into it's special holder as Nick sat back up on the seat. "Well, you heard him, let's go!" Nick, seeing the look on Judy's face, decided very quickly that he would need to buckle up.

5434 Cedar Lane was an abandoned air field, with everything that entailed. The grass was short and brown, the road was dirty and dusty, and full of potholes. The field was on the outskirts of the Rainforest district, well out of the rainfall areas, and in a bit of lawless zone, according to Nick, at least. "So if it's lawless, why did we get called out here?" Judy asked. Nick just shrugged. The dispatch call had simply said suspicious activity, and as they drove up to the single building, they didn't see anything that seemed unusual.

It was a single story building, with a simple satellite dish on the top. Small windows dotted the side, and the building didn't seem too big, not much larger than a two bedroom house. There didn't seem to any activity inside, although it was hard to tell through the layer of dust on the windows.

"Dispatch, this is Cruiser 247. We've reached the area, what exactly are we supposed to be looking for? Who called it in? Over," Nick spoke into the radio.

"Cruiser 247, this is Dispatch. Call was anonymous. Simply said there were loud noises similar to firearms."

"Well, there's nothing here now. Hopps and I are going in."

"10-4. Stay in contact, 247."

Judy hopped out of her seat onto the cold pavement below. It was concrete, the way humans made it, rather than the more gentle version that the Zootopians had done. The house had a simple metal door leading to the inside. She motioned Nick to stay quiet, and take the right side. She hadn't heard anything, and neither had Nick was from what she could tell. They got to the door safely, one on each side.

"ZPD, open up!" She shouted, quickly knocking on the door loudly. She had one hand on her gun, and she was proud to see Nick already had his out. What were they dealing with here? An overdose of a drug? A weapons carrier?

What they didn't expect to hear was "Come on in, door's unlocked!" vaguely coming from inside. It was a voice neither of them recognized, although it sounded somewhat familiar.

Judy cautiously opened the door, hearing the latch unlock and quickly pushing it open, her hand resting on her gun. The inside looked...unique. A simple kitchen was off to the left, and what looked like a work area beyond it. In front of them, in the biggest room, lay a couch, a table, and a tv. A few other doors lined a hallway across the room. There seemed to be no other personal effects, not even any pictures or paintings. The couch appeared shredded in far too many places to be comfortable.

What they didn't expect was to see a blue hedgehog, much taller than most of his species, with ear buds in laying on the couch. He didn't seem to react, or even be able to hear anything.

"Stop, ZPD!" Judy shouted again. The hedgehog finally seemed to realize that the door was open, and pulled out the ear buds. Both Nick and Judy could hear it, even across the room as they were.

"Oh hey! Sorry about that, I didn't hear you. Name's Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog!"

* * *

Tails has a lot to learn about how to act for the police. No idea where he could have learned that behavior...heh. The trick is most of them just want the day to end, so just be as helpful as you can and you'll walk away fine.

That's always the plans anyways.

Name's Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog. Yeah, you've heard of me. World-renowned hero, guy that's probably saved the world more times than people travel down the road. That's me. Tails had already told me about these two, Nick Hopps or Judy Wilde or something. But I wasn't about to spoil that surprise! They seemed surprised to see me. I kind of figured, honestly; last I heard I was last seen in Shamar, the giant desert about two continents away. Certainly not even the guy who could move at the speed of sound for hours on end could move two continents in only a few days!

"S-Sonic!" the bunny said. Like I said, shocked to see me. The fox wasn't much better, just kind of standing there with his mouth open. He should probably close it, might get dust in there, especially here. Especially when Tails isn't here, although we were both lucky that the door to his shop was closed.

"Uh, yeah, that's me. What can I help you two with?" Be polite, let the police know you'll do everything you can to try and help. Well, except give up the Chaos Emeralds, but no one really knows anything about those. Or that we keep them on us, or in my case in a safety-deposit box known as 'underneath the first step to Tails' house in the Mystic Ruins'.

"We heard there was a disturbance here, like weapons firing. Would you know anything about that?" The fox said, seemingly managing to pick himself up.

Weapon firing. Really Tails? Didn't this place have some kind of law against that or something? Obviously it had to, if these two were here for that. I get that you have to be able to test what you make every once in a while, but maybe try it in the middle of the day, when no one's around, rather than the middle of the night!?

"Nope, sorry. I wouldn't know anything about that, I just got here this morning," I said, trying to be cavalier about it. "Wait a second, what kind of weapons firing?" I asked. I suddenly had the idea of how I can pull this off. Best part is, it was probably true. The fox grabbed the radio on his belt.

"Dispatch, this is Officer Wilde. Location only had one suspect, Sonic the Hedgehog. Suspe-" the fox started, before the radio started talking back.

"OMG! Sonic in the flesh! Oh my god, Nick, Judy, please get me his autograph! Oh you two are so lucky, always meeting the celebrities!" the voice on the other hand said. I had to try and pick up on some of it, talking as fast as he was. I can run fast, but talking fast has never been one of my specialties. Thinking fast, on the other hand, that, I can do.

"Hey Dispatch guy, what kind of sounds were they hearing? I assume this got called in or something? If it was loud booms then sorry, pretty sure that was me. Just kind of what happens when you move as fast as I do," I said coolly, raising my voice a bit to make sure that whoever was on the other side heard me.

"Oh my god is that Sonic!? Sonic hi! I'm Benjamin Clawhauser, one of your biggest fans!" The fox, Wilde, held out his radio to me with a smirk on his face. This was normal for him then. That's good. I think. Unless this guy was about to talk my ear off...

"Well thanks Benji! Always nice to keep in touch with the fans and all that. Say, I got here pretty early this morning, and I haven't heard anything suspicious asides from myself, and I've been here pretty much alone the entire day! Sorry about that, think we can just shove this all under the rug?" I shrugged, despite knowing that this Clawhauser guy couldn't see me. But, it certainly helped for the other two.

"Oh, sure thing Mr. Sonic! It was anonymous anyways, just somebody likely trying to pull a prank or something!"

I suddenly started feeling two things. One was a glare that seemed very much like it wanted to set me on fire, had I actually been flammable, and the other a kind of smug impressed feeling. "Do you do that often, Mr. Hedgehog?" The rabbit's voice came back, laced with anger and vitriol.

"Do what often?" I shrugged. The glare got worse. "No idea what you're upset about. Say, I'm not gonna get ticketed am I? I don't even want to think of how many speeding tickets I'd get!" I halfway tried to joke. I've only been pulled over once, in the Speed Highway of Station Square, and that was because I did just run down a building. I later found out that running down buildings was illegal...or at least, it was after I did it.

The rabbit sighed, and tried to get out the door, only to have it burst open before she reached it. "Hey Tails!" I greeted, barely looking over towards the shocked two tailed fox at the door. Not that he showed he had two tails; he wanted to remain anonymous in Zootopia, and had taken to using a couple of orangish bands, the same color as his fur, to bind his tails together. Makes it look like a single ginormous tail, but it seems to be working.

"Sonic! What're you doing here!? And officers Hopps and Wilde? I am so sorry for anything Sonic did while he's out here," Tails said quickly. The two officer's looked at each other, nodded, and started to move out the door. Tails blinked, and moved to let them pass.

"Don't worry about it Miles. We were just investigating some weird sounds someone heard out here. You wouldn't have any weapons out here, would you?" Officer Hopps asked politely. Ha, Tails was so gonna get a ribbing from me on this one. No matter what he says, he has always been lucky with rabbits.

* * *

I wanted to hurt Sonic so badly then. First he comes rocketing from halfway around the world, waking up everybody in the neighborhood (so only me.), giving not enough time to clean up after some of my projects, and then I have to go to school, and I come back and he's talking to the police! I swear, watching over him sometimes is a full time job. I just hope they're just going to give him a speeding ticket and walk away.

Hopps said something to me about weapons. "No," I shook my head, "Why would I? Most firearms are illegal in Zootopia."

"Yes, but there was an anonymous call earlier about odd booming sounds out here, and we're wondering if you had anything to do with it. They claimed it was coming from this place," The bunny officer explained. I shrugged. It made sense, considering where I have to test the Tornado and Cyclone, and the police were already inside. Thanks again for that Sonic.

"Not that I'm aware of. I wonder if they're talking about Sonic's booms though." I looked over to the blue hedgehog, and he seemed to be talking rather animatedly with Wilde about something. I could only hear a few things if I focused on it, but Hopps went back to talking, looking down at her notebook. I moved to close the door, mostly to keep the warmer air in, but Hopps stopped me with another question.

"No, they claimed it was more like the sounds of bullets rather than...'Sonic's booms'?"

"It's easier than saying 'Sonic's sonic booms'. As for bullets, no. I haven't heard the sound of gunfire in years. Sorry officer Hopps."

"Hmm, ok. Come on Nick, I think we're done here," the grey bunny said, walking to the left open door. Wilde followed her, and I waited a few moments to close the door, and waited in silence until I heard the sound of their car drive away. I turned to Sonic, ready to give him a talking-to.

"Was that really necessary Sonic?" I asked. He shrugged in his usual nonchalant way. He must've been taking a nap or something when they got here, otherwise he would've left. He's never been fond of police, and after the ARK incident, I can't really blame him. He doesn't like working with GUN either, but they do have the most resources to put down to tracking Eggman...and they tell him first thing they have a sign.

"Was what necessary?" he asked. I glared at him, and he jumped over to the couch and sat down with a small shrug. "So what's going on, exactly?

"Eggman's in Zootopia somewhere I think. He patched the E-5400's using an old Meteor Tech password, and made the file activate only when it saw one of us. I patched them again to make them not do that, but when I traced back the IP I got put back here."

"Eggman's here? I thought this was a mammal-only city. How would he have gotten in? Can you find where he patched them from?"

"It is a mammal-only city. I have no idea how he would've gotten in, but he managed it somehow. There were a few different uplinks, from a bunch of other places around the city. I'm gonna spend a week or so looking them up, see if I can't track him from any of those places."

"Sounds like a plan. How can I help?" That was one of my favorite things about Sonic. He knew he wasn't the best at dealing with technology, so he'd leave most of that to me, but he'd still try to help in any way he could. I was about to answer before we both heard his ringtone go off. He looked apologetically at me but I waved him off. No one called Sonic unless it was important, and the ringtone, a version of 'I am', meant that it was even more important. Shadow was calling.

"Sonic here. He's what? How? I just heard from Tails he's here!" Sonic said into the device. My blood ran cold. Well...looks like I'm pulling off this one singularly, for now at least. "Alright. Thanks Faker," the blue hedgehog said, immediately hanging up before the infamously bad-tempered black hedgehog could say anything.

"You know, sometimes I wonder about that guy. He claims that he's only been keeping an eye on us while Rouge is out somewhere, but it makes me think sometimes..." he said. I snickered internally, and I tried to fight it. I honestly did. I just didn't try very hard.

"That'd be a first."

"Oh har har. What are you, an echidna? Anyway, Shadow says GUN found Eggman somewhere near Empire City." Empire City was a large city, one of the biggest on the continent, a good two days travel away from here for either of us. Eggman, last we knew, would take at least a week.

"Hmm...maybe he patched it from here then ran? The time it would take makes sense," I tried to reason. Sonic nodded but then shook his head, his spines flying everywhere.

"That's not Eggman's style. He doesn't run unless we're chasing him. No, there's something more here. I'll check out Empire City, you keep investigating around here. And try not to let the police catch on next time. Also, really, what are you doing testing weapons out here?"

I couldn't help it. I chuckled a bit. "There won't be a next time. And I wasn't shooting anything, the polar modulator on the Cyclone blew up again, there weren't high enough resistors to slow the Chaos energy flow."

"Is that what that sound was? I heard it a couple of miles away!"

"Yeah, after the gasket blew a couple of days ago it's been nothing but trouble. I'll fix it soon, but I think Eggman requires the most attention," I said. The Cyclone, a mech I created about six years ago, was a piece of art. It could fire nearly infinite homing missiles once I'd locked on, and it had tons of normal vulcan ammo for it's front facing gun. It could also transform into a plane, and a car! I had another plane, the Tornado, that was still working amazingly despite being nearly ten years old. It was an old red biplane model, that I'd also rigged to transform into a battle mode for dogfights.

I've never liked creating weapons, like guns. On the other hand, creating things that make explosions, I will never tire of. And I make a lot of things that go boom. Even now, had those two officers searched my lab it might've made things a bit complicated, what with nearly three Chaos bombs in stasis in plain sight. A Chaos bomb is simply a bomb that doesn't explode until some amount of Chaos energy reacts to it, kind of like C4. And seeing as how I regularly work with the Chaos Emeralds, there is no shortage of boom in my lab.

"You should try and open your own shop sometime Tails, I'd bet you'd get a ton of people lining up," Sonic said, walking towards the door. I knew the next line he was about to say well before he said it. He always said the same thing to me before he leaves, "Oh, and Tails? Stay safe."

"Stay fast," I responded. There is no way that Sonic would ever stay safe, and I didn't bother pretending. But on the other hand, I could wish for him to stay safe by going faster. Speed was his life, and as long as he didn't lose it, he'd be fine. Once he'd left, a sonic boom left in his wake with dust flying everywhere, I sat down on the shredded couch, suddenly realizing how quiet it is with no one in here. I grabbed the remote and turned on the tv for some white noise. For now, I needed to think.

I agree with Sonic, especially about the police. If they had snooped around much longer, they could have found one of the Chaos Emeralds I was using for research, and these guys didn't know nearly as much about them as we do. I have to protect everyone.

* * *

"Oh my god Nick that was so cool we just met Sonic the Hedgehog!" Judy gushed from the passenger seat, straining the seat belt as she wiggled around. Nick stared at her from his position from behind the wheel in admiration.

'How is it that she can act so professional when actually at a location and then do this? She did this with Gazelle that one other time too,' Nick thought. "Hey Fluff, you might want to stop squirming, it's going to be a while before we get back to the station. Don't want to tire yourself out now do you?"

Judy stopped moving around and tried to sit still for a bit, before continuing her wiggling. "Sorry Nick, it's just, Sonic the Hedgehog! Do you know how many mammals would be willing to do just about anything to meet the real thing!"

"You sure looked like you wanted to light him on fire back there."

"Well..." Judy said slowly, grabbing one of her ears and slowly petting it, "that's because he just abused Clawhauser's trust to just sweep the entire thing under the rug. Right in front of us! How does that not make you angry, that he just doesn't care about the law and procedure!"

"Carrots," Nick started, before hesitating. He wondered exactly how to explain what had happened, and how Sonic actually hadn't done anything wrong. "He hustled Clawhauser, that's all," Nick finished. Judy stared at him for a moment. The fox could almost see the little cogs turning in her cute little brain.

"Oh, I get it. He knew that Clawhauser would do whatever he wanted, and has he hadn't actually done anything wrong asides running, it didn't really hurt Clawhauser's position."

"Got it in one Fluff. Clawhauser didn't get hurt, we only wasted a bit of time, and he gets off all at the same time. He didn't really do anything anyone else in his position wouldn't do."

"Cruiser 247, this is Dispatch. Chief wants you two to look at a disturbance on Walnut St. It should be right in your way if you're heading back to the station," Benjamin's voice cut through the radio. Judy dutifully grabbed it before Nick could barely react, leaving his paw hanging in open air.

"This is Officer Hopps. 10-4 Dispatch. Where on Walnut Street, over?" Judy said, smirking at Nick. He rolled his eyes and continued, the roads getting more and more slippery as they entered the Rainforest District.

"The old parking garage, at 1024. Sorry for the increase in work Judy..." Benjamin's voice suddenly went back to his normal hyperexpressive self instead of his usual dispatcher voice.

Judy smiled. "Don't worry about it Clawhauser, it's what we're here for! 1024 Walnut Street, got it. Thanks Clawhauser!"

"Thanks Judy!"

The bunny looked towards her partner, who continued driving as if he hadn't just heard Judy and Clawhauser talk about something that wasn't Gazelle or a concert. "So..." she said slowly. "1024 Walnut street. I didn't even know we had any parking garages in Zootopia."

"We have a few. Pretty rare and not well kept up. I think they've been trying to bring one down out in Tundratown for a while. The Walnut street one is known for doing insane jumps and getting hurt."

"Why would they do that?"

"For adrenaline I'd think. You've never tried something thrilling despite knowing it was stupid?"

"Here and there, but nothing that stupid. You ever tried anything like that?" Judy asked.

"Oh, you're not getting out of this that easy Carrots. Come on, spill. We have a ways to go before we're there."

"What? Nick, I don't have to tell you anything!"

"You know I'm going to keep bugging you until you tell me. Now come on, what did younger stupid Judy do?" Nick asked, smirking at the bunny's horrified expression.

Which quickly turned into a more neutral one. "I'll buy you coffee for a week if you stop asking."

"...sold, sly bunny."

"Dumb fox."

The rest of the drive didn't take too long for Nick, slurping happily from his coffee, while Judy fake weeped for her wallet. While they were partners, they certainly didn't know everything about each other, and Judy was happy trying to keep that status quo. She certainly didn't want to attempt to get anything out of Nick if it made him uncomfortable...but she'd do it if she was bored enough, or thought that he was harboring something she could use for a case. Hell, that was how they'd met! The second time, at least.

The building they were supposed to go to, 1024 Walnut street, was a dull grey parking garage. It was made out of concrete all the way up, with two sets of stairs leading from the sides. Unlike the normal garages that they use nowadays, this one was built up instead of into the ground. And not too many mammals had cars, so most of the garages were just wastes of space. They drove up the bare ramps, clear as daylight and not a soul to be found. The drive areas were tall, meant for cars such as giraffes and such, while there other areas for the smaller mammals, such as the rodents. That all changed once they hit the roof.

Nick had his sunglasses on, which spared him from the worst of the sun's onslaught, but Judy was caught dead on as they passed over the apex onto the roof. It was a startling white, closer to snow than the cold dead grey of the rest of the building, and reflected light directly into their vehicle.

"There they are," Nick announced, as Judy tried to force her eyes to see. It took a moment, but she managed it through sheer force of will.

There were five mammals, two weasels, a pig, a beaver, and what seemed to be a squirrel or a chipmunk, Judy wasn't able to tell. There were two other cars on the roof, neither of them started, and a large pile of wooden boards in a makeshift ramp.

"Stop, ZPD!" Judy yelled as she shot out of the car, pleasantly surprised as to how all five immediately froze up and looked over. The concrete was also colder than she thought it would've been, especially at this time of day in Savannah Central. She likened it more to the road outside Miles' place.

"Oh hey coppers, yeah we weren't doin' nothin!" One of the weasels said, both of his hands up. He sounded young, maybe around Miles' age or so if she had to guess. Maybe a bit younger.

"Nothing, huh? That's what's that behind you?" Nick asked, smirking at them in his usual way. One of these days, Judy was going to ask how he managed to have that perfect look all the time. What does he do, practice his facial expressions in front of a mirror? She'd been over at his place enough to know that if he does, he certainly doesn't do it for very long.

"There's nothin' behind us, I swear!" the weasel continued, before realizing that the group of five is not big enough to hide a ramp large enough for a car. "Oh, that. That's not ours I swear. We just found it like this!"

"Oh screw this! You'll never catch us alive coppers!" The squirrel yelled, his voice high pitched and rather squeaky. Judy didn't even have to really think, she raised her tranquilizer gun and shot him in the back. The other four looked at the now knocked out squirrel, sleeping like a dream from the large dart sticking out of his body, before raising their hands quickly.

"That's better," Nick said, never failing in that almost annoyingly insufferable smug look he had.

The ride back to the station was pretty simple. Judy drove while Nick was turned around, getting their base information, even as squeezed as they were. The back seats of their cruiser were meant for two animals, not five, although the squirrel was still knocked out, an almost comically large dart attached to his back.

"Hey, Benji, ring up these five for us will you? We have to go write up some reports!" Nick said, slyly trying to pass by the excitable cheetah. Judy smiled before passing by, waiting for the inevitable.

"Sorry Nick! Procedure and all that, someone has to stay here and make sure they don't run, and unless you want to put all that on poor little officer Hopps...why is one of them tranquilized?" Clawhauser asked, looking at the still sleeping squirrel, one hand on the scruff of Nick's neck holding him back. Judy whistled innocently as she went towards the back, leaving the explanation to Nick. Every time they brought a mammal in, Nick would try and leave them with only Clawhauser for some reason or another, most likely his being forced to write the reports, and each time Clawhauser would grab Nick's neck, and force him to stay.

"Poor? She shot Alvin! From thirty yards away!" the pig said. Clawhauser looked at Judy, walking away innocently, before whistling, impressed.

"Wow, that small of a target at thirty yards!? That's impressive! Let's see, Alvin, squirrel..." the donut-eating cheetah trailed off. Nick just stared impassively at the other four mammals, who dutifully gave their name when asked.

Judy had barely sat down in her overly large seat before she heard Chief Bogo's raucous voice, "Hopps! Wilde! Get in here!" She rolled her eyes and calmly walked over to the Chief's office. After a notoriously large media case, like the one she had been involved in the previous few days, it wasn't uncommon for her and her partner to be summoned to the Chief's room. It especially wasn't uncommon when the Chief had to proofread and redact all of their larger cases for the public to actually view.

"Hi Chief Bogo. Nick's still booking a few of those mammals from the parking garage," she explained after she had gotten the customary greeting, a bare gruff "come in" from the Chief.

"I see. Good then, I want to talk to you alone for a bit. Now I have recently been informed that you met Sonic the Hedgehog at 5434 Cedar?"

"Yes sir," Judy nodded, her ears being kept straight and upright. She had been in the Chief's office too much to know when she was and wasn't in trouble, and this was definitely a 'not in trouble' time. Still, it never hurt to be polite and to the point. Bogo preferred it like that.

"Do you have any idea what he was doing there?"

"It seemed to be where Miles Prower had been staying for some time."

"Any evidence of weapons usage?"

"No sir."

"I see. Hopps, I don't think I need to say this to you. Maybe to your partner, but not to you. Sonic the Hedgehog is notorious for only appearing in places where Dr. Robotnik, will be. As such, he has been considered a herald for the madman, despite stopping him so many times. Naturally, something big is going on, despite us not knowing what. I've been trying to get in contact with GUN HQ, and they haven't yet returned my calls. Keep an eye out, and ensure that the report of the Cedar situation is on my desk by clock out."

"Uh...yes sir," Judy stammered. Bogo rarely talked in complete paragraphs, let alone as much exposition as he just did. At least to them. Even in the briefing room, it was only a few words to explain things and then 'dismissed'.

When she got back to the tiny cubicle she shared with her partner, she saw the red fox spinning on his chair in the center. "Nick..." she sighed out. She was about to continue but the vulpine stopped and looked directly at her.

"So what'd the Chief want? We're not in trouble for something we did or didn't do yet are we? I wouldn't put it past buffalo-butt."

"No, he just wants the report on the Cedar thing. You do the parking garage, I'll do the Sonic and Tails thing."

"Sure thing, Fluff. Quick question; why did you tranq that squirrel? You could've caught up to him."

Judy blushed under her fur, her ears turning an amusing shade of red as she avoided looking at Nick, "He... looked like a target when he ran."

"Ah. I'm glad they don't make fox targets."

* * *

Once you do a hack once, if you've covered your tracks well, it's rare that you need to do it all over again. The hardest part to most hacking things is the original password and username, and if you already have that, and an IP address, it's a lot easier to get back in.

Which is good for me, because I dropped a quick recording program into the patch server of Meteor Tech, and they hadn't figured that out yet. It recorded all of the IP's that accessed the server between the time I dropped my patch, and the time I went and picked it up. In that time, there had been four accesses. Eggman, or someone else, had accessed the Meteor Tech patch server four times in two days. And not for patching either.

I think I can call this effectively 'Patch Warfare' now. Eggman, or someone, had dropped another patch that undid mine, and I made another patch that undid his that undid mine, while making it so no other patch can undo my original patch. That should stump him for five minutes. It didn't need to last long, only long enough to grab his IP, which it had anyways.

They were all from places in Zootopia. One in Tundratown, Sahara Square, the Rainforest District slash Canal district, and then finally, the Zootopia University. My own school. Well.

I sighed and stared at my screen a bit. It had also gotten my IP, but that was to be expected. I erased my records, but kept the program running in the background. If whoever was patching the E-5400's wasn't Eggman, they sure hadn't left Zootopia. If it was Eggman, then I have no idea how GUN found him in Empire City. It'd be a lot more likely for him to be there than here. Easier to blend in before he causes some kind of massive trouble. It's kind of hard to miss a human walking around in a mammal only city.

I didn't know which one to go to first. The Rainforest district was fairly close by, so it wouldn't take me long to check it out. I checked the time; I had been more involved by my work than I had thought. The officers had left here at around 1 in the afternoon (I did live out in the middle of nowhere on purpose.) and Sonic left a few minutes later. It was now six at night. Eggman didn't move much at night, as we figured out during the Dark Gaia incident. That was good, it'd give me some time to rest before I leave in the morning.

As Sonic would always say before something happened, "And let the games begin."

* * *

To: Sonic  
From: Tails

Sonic,

I found four locations in mammal-land up here. Checking them out tomorrow, I'll text you where I'm going when I go. Stay fast.

* * *

To: Tails  
From: Sonic

Tails,

Stay safe, lil' bud. Don't let anyone keep you down.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's chapter...5? Let me know what you guys think of this length, and the shorter paragraphs. Thanks! Next one may be a bit shorter though, as this one took a lot out of me. Until next time!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short one this time around. After the one chapter that was dealing with Sonic, now we're going just a tad bit faster. Funny how Sonic isn't here for that.

Judy stood at attention as Chief Bogo entered the bullpen, Nick sitting next to her. She was secretly envious that he was tall enough to be able to sit down and still see, whereas she had to stand. In the front. Especially because the one time Nick had forced her to sit on the desk Bogo had yelled at them about 'proper bullpen procedure' afterwards.

"Right. Most of you, same assignments and locations as yesterday. Hope you remember them. Hopps, Wilde, get to the Rainforest district. There's been a break-in in the Cliffside asylum."

Nick and Judy looked at one another. The Cliffside asylum was where they had found the missing fourteen mammals more than a year ago, back when Nick wasn't on the force. Since then, the building had seemed abandoned, and there wasn't much there that was left. There had been talk of condemning the building and making it into a sort of resort due to its location on a literal cliff side.

They piled into their cruiser in silence, both lost in their own thoughts. "Why would anyone want to break in to the asylum? Don't they usually want to break out?" Judy asked.

Nick nodded absentmindedly, seeming distracted. "Alright, what's wrong Nick?"

"Hmm? Oh, nothing Carrots. Nothing at all."

"Dungbeetles. What's bothering you?"

Nick stared at her in amazement, "Did...did you just curse? Did Judith Laverne Hopps just curse? Not much of a curse though..." Judy could feel her ears start to heat up. It was a relatively tame phrase; the human equivalent would be 'bullshit', but Nick was treating her as if she hadn't cursed before. Which, to be fair, she hadn't, at least in front of him. It was rare for her in the best of times, but Nick must've been rubbing off on her. "Well, if you feel that strongly about it. Someone still owes me coffee," Nick said, wiggling his eyebrows. Judy sighed, pulling out her wallet in shame, and pulling over to a nearby Snarlbucks.

"So really, what's bothering you Slick?" Judy asked, after they had dropped by the drive through coffee shop. Nick had actually managed to stay away from caffeine, and was instead happily sipping a blueberry smoothie.

"Just something from yesterday. Sonic and Tails seemed awfully complacent for two dudes that were suspects from the police."

"I see what you mean, but we have no evidence or cause to go back. We'd only be harassing them at this point. Besides, remember the West Island movie? They spent half of it on the run from the cops."

"I asked Sonic yesterday about some of those movies. Miles was right, some of those are far off, if what Sonic told me is true. Like all of Angel Island was messed up in some way, and how ARK really wasn't the end of Shadow."

"So what're you thinking?"

"As soon as we find some cause, we go back. I think they're hiding something, and I think they're hiding something big."

"Well, they are celebrities. Maybe they're just too used to seeing the big picture, and not enough of the small one?"

Nick seemed distracted. "Did you notice though how Sonic also had five fingers? The version in the movies only has four. As does Tails' version. Yet the real one had five also. I wonder if there's a connection there." Judy 'hmm'ed and focused on driving. She had noticed that actually, but just attributed it to whatever reason Sonic was blue, and much larger than a normal hedgehog. An actual hedgehog would be barely taller than Judy, but Sonic was as tall as Nick!

Cliffside Asylum was a good thirty minutes away from the station, as close to the border between districts as it was. They continued the rest of the way in silence, their minds each having their own thoughts. They Asylum looked exactly as it had last time; a tall dark and dreary building, almost like an ancient wooden castle. Whereas last time there had been guards and other vehicles, this time there was nothing except for the reflection of their lights from the unnatural rain.

"So Carrots, what's our plan of attack? Look for where they broke in and entered?"

"Uh...Nick? Look straight ahead," Judy said simply, pointing to the large doors that once gated the entrance. They had been smashed inwards by something with an incredible amount of force. One of the two sides had been knocked off its hinges, and the other and banged into the wall so hard that it got stuck.

"Well. Good news Carrots, we know where they broke in and entered." Judy tried to strangle the chuckle that threatened to come out of her throat, and judging from Nick's smirk she didn't quite succeed. Without hesitation they bounded out of the vehicle to get a closer look at the once-proud asylum. It had definitely seen better days; even during the Nighthowler case it was better than it was now. And that was discounting the break-in.

"What mammal could even do this?" Judy asked, looking at the hinges of the knocked down door. It had been almost a clean shear, the metal parts not even having the time to begin to open. Nick looked at the other side, and tried unsuccessfully to pry it back out.

"I don't know, Fluff. These doors are metal though, not wood. Probably the only reason they stayed together as they did."

"But wouldn't that leave a giant dent, if it was a machine or something? Look at these marks, these aren't the marks of a blowtorch or anything. These are something else," Judy pointed out, long black marks that signified where they hinges used to connect running along the wall. "I've never even seen this kind of thing before."

"Come on, we should check out the rest of the place. Find what other evidence we can," Nick said, using his flashlight to point out the darkened corners of the cold grey. The actual inside was fairly nice. Simply tiled, the room gave a deadened feeling, one that had the lights been on once might have been warm and receptive.

They were in a long hallway, with a few doors off the side leading to other rooms. Most of the doors were still shut, and when Nick or Judy tried a few of them they had been locked and dead bolted. At the end was a dark steel double door, similar to the entrance but much smaller. Or at least, there should have been a dark steel double door.

It too, like the entrance doorway, had been smashed to pieces. One of the two doors was quite legitimately gone, shrapnel all over the place on the inside. The other door was hanging there, just about ready to fall. They stepped inside and recognized the area. During the Nighthowler crisis, they had been forced to infiltrate the asylum by going through a back entrance that led out to the cliff side. On the inside, they had found the missing mammals. This was the same place as where the cells were, including the one they had accidentally locked themselves in.

"Hey Carrots...didn't these cells have cameras? Think they still work?" Nick asked. Judy looked around, being careful to avoid the metal shards from the broken door, which wasn't broken so much as had been shredded. At the top of each cell was a camera that was pointing out towards the door, and occasionally swung back inwards, as if keeping watch over some other poor mammals.

"They might, if they're still turning. I'm going to check in here some more, you check outside for some kind of security booth," Judy said. Nick nodded and ducked back out to the front hallway. The bunny took a deep breath, and trying to watch where she was going to avoid the shrapnel, took a look down the hallway.

It was just as bare as it had been a year ago. There were no animals this time, thankfully, but the hallways was just as bare and dark as it was then. She could see some sunlight far down, at the very end of the hallway. The wall was completely torn out, as if someone had taken some kind of wrecking ball to it. Pieces of the concrete were missing, and there were massive chunks all over the place. Whoever had come in here had blown in the front door, setting off the alarms, blown out the laboratory doors, and then the wall, all in a straight line.

"Hey, Carrots? You might need to see this!" Nick's voice echoed down the silent hallway. She turned and ran, narrowly avoiding the chaotically placed traps and debris. Nick had found the security room alright; some of the monitors had been torn off by something, but there was fortunately still one working.

"Yeah, Carrots, you're going to want to see this. I came in here and it was all like this, but check out the footage. I rewound it to when the alarms went off," Nick explained, pressing a button on the keyboard. Judy peered in, wondering what it was exactly that had caught Nick's interest.

She couldn't actually tell what it was. In real time, it looked like something wasn't there, then the doors got blown in, and then back to nothing. "What am I looking at, exactly?"

"That's just it, Fluff. I don't know."

* * *

I quickly texted Sonic where I was heading, somewhere in the Rainforest district, and started running. I had gotten up fairly early, a little before dawn. The city isn't that good at dealing with nocturnal creatures very well, at least in my experience, but it was more than bright enough for me to see just fine.

I took a course that led me one of the platformed roads, basically roads built into the trees rather than on the ground. My dust cloud wasn't big, and I was deliberately trying to avoid using a boost. I was still fast enough on my own, even handicapped as I was.

I hummed a small tune to myself as I treated this outing like I do everything else; just another Zone. And hell, there were even some rings around! Little tiny embodiments of Chaos, they act as protection if you know how to use them, and can stop almost any lethal action. Asides from drowning, getting crushed, pit traps, falling down...ok, maybe they weren't that good at protection. But most things they were good for.

Not many, mind you, but enough for me to not be worried. Nobody else was around yet, and my target destination was still quite a ways off. I wasn't actually too certain how to get there, but that's never stopped me before!

I slid on some of the water, hydroplaning my way across one of the roads, my wind trail still fairly behind me. I followed the road a little bit, until I came across a tiny chasm I'd have to jump. I didn't even think; I jumped off the edge, and got quite a bit more air time than I was expecting. I had to land on a small platform that looking closer to a faucet, but managed to regain myself in time to not lost my momentum. I might've accidentally grabbed the switch though, I don't know. Didn't really feel like I did.

I checked my mental map again, continuing the same tune in my head. From where I was, I would've needed to head southeast, in order to follow the road leading north. There weren't any cars on the road, and I smiled as I let my speed get to me. There weren't many things better than going down a road at five in the morning traveling two hundred!

I quickly realized my map was off when instead of the road continuing like it should have, I hit a building...literally, hit it. Well, went through it actually, and barely had enough time to go faster to break out another door before going through a hallway that quickly ended in a flat wall. As I was definitely not panicking, everything else you hear are lies and slander, I quickly spun myself into a ball for a spindash. Flat wall no more!

I then realized that walls are put there for a reason, and that reason generally includes things such as 'if it wasn't there, there would be a direct exit to death by falling into a lake!'. I thanked Sonic once again as I did start boosting, getting enough traction to run on top of the lake. If my tails weren't banded, it'd be easier to stay on top of it but they were, so I had to go with pure kinetic energy rather than, say, some form of flight.

It's good to have options.

Granted, most options would be better if I didn't have to run on top of a lake only to end up lost. Well, not lost per se, but definitely not knowing where I currently am. So I did as Sonic usually does in these situations and ran up the nearest tall tree once I landed back on solid ground. Or as close to solid ground as you could get in the Rainforest district, even as far out as I was.

And promptly hit my head against the wooden platforms. Somehow, this does not surprise me. Between this and that other building I ran through, I was lucky I still had some rings on me. I found another way around by just climbing on the bottom of the wood before swinging myself around to get to the top. Stupid tails being banded and all that...it'd be a lot easier to just fly. Next time I do this, I'm going as myself. Eggman, if your plans involve me outing myself to the general public, then congratulations, you've actually succeeded. For once.

I looked out into the rising sun, appreciating the view for what I saw, but definitely not appreciating it for what I didn't see, which is where I was supposed to be going. Then one of those skytrams stopped in front of me. "Oh yeah, these things..." I said to no one, as I got on. I had completely forgotten about these things. At the very least I could see where I was. These things go fairly high into the sky.

Then I heard the dreaded 'Priority Two Fox, capture immediately' robotized voice. Right, now I remember why I didn't take these things that often, asides from them being wastes of time. They're completely useless!

This security robot, who had been guarding the entrance that I had somehow managed to not see, which I blame the glare for, was a darkened green, similar to the foliage of the trees. Must've been that way for camouflage. Camouflage or not though, it definitely was shooting real bullets at me. Not for the last time, I wished for my tablet; at least then I could try and hack in, but all I had was my watch, which is no good against these things. Different wireless. I should fix that at some point...

Oh right, the bullets. Well, the robots must have graduated, probably with honors, out of the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy, considering it fired at least fifty in a second or two, and none of them came close. I was thankful, don't get me wrong. Just kind of annoyed. And then the skytram started moving.

Ever been on a moving platform with a robot that can fly that's shooting at you? Word of advice, don't. I had run around the deck at least twice, and the robot was still following me. I looked down at the trees well below me, and cursed again for having the stupid decision to band my tails. Well, I'm not doing that again, screw anonymity if it gets me killed! Or... hurt. I have rings.

Still, getting shot is generally a bad thing. I thought again about what Sonic would do, but the answer generally came as 'Do something extreme and exciting and pray for Tails to catch me,' which I knew couldn't be right. Although, something extreme and exciting...I could do that.

I jumped on top of the skytram, where the vine was that led the track, getting rid of my last piece of cover. Extreme and exciting, I don't think it gets much worse than this... "Alright, I've had enough fun with you for now, I've got better things to do. Take care!" I yelled, doing a quick boost onto the vine.

Don't ask me how sparks started shooting out from under me as I grinded on it, I don't know how either. I'd just say 'Chaos did it' and be done.

The boost was a needed touch, as I shot away at nearly four hundred miles an hour. The robot continued chasing me, but quickly fell behind. "This is going to be painful later..." I whispered, knowing that boosting while grinding, while barepawed, wasn't the best of ideas, and I was running low on rings now.

I hopped off at the next skytram station, about a mile away. I could see the robot coming closer, and it seemed to have stopped firing. I checked my ring count; five. Well, this might be close then, but as long as I had one I'd be fine. I hid behind a billboard, brandishing my wrench. I was lucky it was still early, and there weren't many cars on the road yet.

The sound and smell of exhaust came through as it landed. I could hear it turning it's mechanical neck, scanning everything it could for a sign of 'Priority Two'. I wonder if Eggman did that pun on purpose, now that I think of it... It walked past noisily, it's large chicken-like legs bouncing up and down. It hadn't seen me yet. And I wouldn't let it.

I ran around and quickly spindashed into it, busting up one side of its legs, forcing it to collapse. Using the rest of my momentum, I unfurled and swung the wrench as hard as I could straight at its midsection, it's armor proving no match for the heavy piece of equipment.

As it tried to turn around, I ran the other way and quickly spindashed into its torso, where the data core would be, and grabbed it easily enough, forcing an early shutdown. Oh yeah, Tails 2, Mechas 0. The core was still in good condition, and I'd be able to check to make sure my patches went through, despite it attacking me. I put it into my bullet-ridden backpack (I dodge for myself, not my stuff. No idea how Sonic manages it so easily.) and ran off back to my lab.

Once again, I had no idea the amount of chaos I had just caused.

* * *

Judy and Nick had just finished putting their cruiser into gear when they Bogo's voice rang them from over the radio. "Hopps, Wilde! Answer immediately!" They looked at each other in shock before Nick passed it over to his partner.

"Officer Hopps here. What's going on Chief?" She asked, starting to warm up the vehicle. They hadn't found much evidence asides from what it looked like; they had the footage from the security cameras, but there were only about five frames that anything could happen, and the pictures were too blurry for anything immediate. They also noticed that the timestamp skipped for ten seconds afterwards, with nothing having changed. Whoever had come in had come in at that time.

"Get down to the skytram station at Tujunga. There's something I think you should see."

Judy looked over at Nick, who dutifully plugged it into their GPS. "10-4 Chief, en route, ETA is 10," Judy said, reading the numbers back. There was a loud hiss of static as Bogo hung up the radio, or gave it back to Clawhauser. They weren't sure. "What's going on you think?"

"Why Carrots, I'm glad you think so highly of my psychic abilities," Nick said, diving back down into his phone. Judy looked over to see that he was replaying the security footage from Cliffside. She could see him pause on those five frames, and try to find something. Whatever it was, it all happened too damned fast.

"Har har Nick, I'm being honest. Any ideas?"

"Not a one. Unless the skytram is all shot up," Nick said, continuing to look over the data. Judy frowned and continued to keep focusing on the roads. The Rainforest district's definition of 'road' was loose at the best of times, and due to the constant rainfall most of them were always wet. A shiny glare kept pulling the bunny's amethyst eyes, and eventually hitting a straightaway Judy looked up to at least try to see what it was. A single vine, the ones used for the skytram, polished more than Judy had ever seen before. As they reached the skytram station, she pulled over and immediately tried to get Nick's attention, and just pointed at the remainder of the little vehicle.

"Well, what do you know. I guess I am psychic," Nick commented with wide eyes. A tiger and a wolf, Delgato and Fangmeyer, had already cordoned everything off and were attempting to undo the skytram. The tram itself had been shot to hell and back, small bullet casings, the same from a security robot, littered the floor and sides. In the middle of the station lay a wrecked robot, with one its legs bashed in and it's data core practically cut out with a certain type of savagery.

"Fangmeyer, Delgato! What happened here?" Judy asked, bouncing underneath the police line tape. Nick followed a moment later, one ear perked to hear what the wolf or tiger would say.

"We don't know Hopps. We got a call earlier saying that someone heard gunshots near the skytram, and when we got here all we found was...this. Hold on and help us take this off the rails would you? We need to get the skytram back on track soon," Fangmeyer said. Judy and Nick looked at each other, before going one on each side and trying to lift it. Between the four of them, they managed to get it off the rail, and put it onto the ground, Judy just narrowly avoiding getting caught as it thumped loudly as it hit the ground.

"Hey Carrots...this is the same thing that happened with the other robot," Nick said, peering over at the wrecked security droid. Fangmeyer mouthed to her, 'He calls you Carrots? Really? I thought that was just a joke!' Judy ignored the grey wolf and looked over to her partner.

Sure enough, the side of the leg had been batted in with a large blunt object, enough to get the robot to collapse instantaneously under its own weight. Right in the torso, where the data core usually sat, was a large lesion that on anything mammalian would be near instant death, going almost all the way through to the other side. Oil dripped dramatically through the emptiness.

"Cheese and crackers...they took the core too, whoever did this. Did you guys get any footage from the security cameras?" Judy asked, turning around. Delgato looked pensive for a bit, even as his partner was struggling to hold in his laughs. 'She actually says that, wow!'

"Not yet, we haven't been back to the station yet. Here's the records from the statements that we've gathered," the tiger said, pulling out his phone and texting her something. She looked down and merely nodded her thanks.

"Hey Slick, we're heading back to try and process all this! Anything else before we head back?"

Fangmeyer, who had managed to compose himself, merely raised his hand like a schoolchild. Judy raised her eyebrow, and the wolf slowly put his hand back down as he said, "This thing's been shot up badly but...there's no blood. In fact, it doesn't even look like anything was even here!"

"Nick..." Judy turned. The fox was staring straight at her, his usually warm emerald eyes holding only cold at the moment.

"Once we finish, I think we need to have another talk with Miles." Judy nodded her agreement, still overlooking the wreckage of the skytram station.

* * *

>   
>  To: Tails  
>  From: Sonic
> 
> Tails,
> 
> Alright, I'm impressed. Grinding on a vine nearly a thousand feet up. Where did you get crazy ideas like that? Couldn't have been from me, absolutely not. What'd you get from the core?

* * *

>   
>  To: Sonic  
>  From: Tails
> 
> Sonic,
> 
> Not as much as I'd like. The patches went through, but the robots can still be changed on an individual basis, as this one was. On the other hand, that means that whoever was using these knew what they were doing. Three places left, I'm going to spend the rest of today gathering more rings. I'm almost out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's Chapter 6. I really need to stop editing, I think I added like a thousand plus words to this chapter. Isn't editing supposed to slim things down?
> 
> Anyways, please leave a comment or review, let me know what you think, what I can improve on, etc. I do read every review/comment, even if I can't respond immediately. Until next time.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 7. The one where there's a title drop. Also things start to become both clearer and yet not at the same time. Here's to hoping it's entertaining, at least.

Sometimes Nick Wilde truly enjoyed being a police officer. Other times he didn't, such as when checking out a particularly bad murder scene, or having to pull over an old colleague. Some of them understood that it was his job now, but most of them didn't, and would rant and rave about the 'traitorous fox'. But by far the most enjoyable feeling he had was being proven right, without a doubt.

Judy and Nick had piled into their office, pouring over the security cameras details. Despite the grainy picture, it was still obvious what had happened. In the skytram stop at Lark, Miles walked in, appearing fine. The robot scanned him, and started shooting. Miles ran into the skytram, even as the mech flew up after him. From there the picture of what happened was less clear. Miles somehow arrived at the Tujunga stop well before the skytram did, and hid behind one of the station advertisements. The robot flew back down, and then got promptly jumped by the vulpine who handled the fight almost too well. It could barely even be called a fight.

"So Miles has the data core. That's definitely enough to go after him," Judy said, immediately preparing to leave again. They had barely been at the station for ten minutes.

"Hold on for a moment Carrots. Didn't Chief say something about not going after him for a while?" Nick asked. Judy looked at him in confusion for a moment.

"No, I don't think he did...he told us not to go after him on...those cases...but he said nothing about the Cliffside case," Judy responded smugly. She looked at the clock; barely three in the afternoon. Plenty of time. "Grab your gear and the computer and let's go!" she said, starting to grab and ensure her own gear was proper.

"Wildehopps! Get in here!" Bogo yelled from the corner of his office, his voice managed to carry throughout the majority of the building.

Judy froze, before she sighed suddenly. Somehow, every time. "Ooh, someone's in trouble...again..." Fangmeyer teased from around the cubicles, Judy's hearing telling her that his wolf partner was chuckling to himself.

She grabbed Nick's tie and dragged both him and herself to the Chief's office. Nick let himself be dragged, and shrugged helplessly to the other two officers. Judy may not know it, but she was really strong, especially for a bunny. And it meant less effort for Nick, so win-win.

"You asked to see us, sir?" Judy asked tentatively, trying to let no sign of her frustration out, as she walked into the opened office door, dragging Nick with her. The vulpine saw the small warning signs; overly sweet language, demure attitude...if the Chief wasn't the Chief, he'd be in for one long lecture. He himself always tried to get just before this point, like it was a game of chicken where the failure was having his ears talked off for hours.

"Get in here, close the door," the deep bass voice rumbled. Nick rolled his eyes and shut the door behind him, before jumping up and sinking into the overly large chairs.

"Cliffside. What happened? The mayor has been asking for updates. Every five minutes, for the last two hours," Bogo said, peering directly into their eyes. Judy looked at Nick, who dutifully got out his phone and showed the Chief the still images that they got out of the security cameras. He took the phone, and carefully narrowed his eyes through his glasses. Nick took the moment to explain.

"Something hit it really hard, going really fast. The doors were blown off their hinges, even the solid steel door in the halfway area. The wall on the other side had been completely blown up. The security cameras were offline for about ten seconds after the initial explosion. None of the other cameras caught anything, or were knocked offline themselves."

"Any suspects?"

"Not yet, Chi-" Nick started, before Judy interrupted.

"We think we may have one, but we need your permission to go after him to ask him some questions," Judy said quickly. Bogo handed back Nick's phone and stared at Judy, trying to unnerve her. When she had first gotten to the precinct so long ago, it had worked like a charm. But now she had seen it so often she was practically immune.

"My permission? I can't give warrants, Officer Hopps. That's the judge's job."

"We know Chief, but he was another suspect in that case that you closed."

Bogo sighed, rubbing his temples at the incoming headache. Already these two had broken a lot of the laws that hold Zootopia together, and they seemed able to just rewrite the book whenever they wanted. The judge's commission had already seen that fact, and when presented with any of their cases had given an immediate executive order. 'Just...just let them do it.' They even had a special file of warrants solely for these two. Usually that would've worried him, except these two actually succeeded most of the time. Of course, he did have to edit most of their shenanigans...and make no mistake, they were shenanigans...although he wasn't going to give them one this time around. He had a feeling something bigger than usual was going on. But he could give them verbal permission at least.

"Fine. Fine. You can't arrest him unless you have cause, but it had better be a good one," Bogo said, ushering them out of his office. Once more in silence, he picked up the phone and tried one last time to contact the governmental united navy. Considering the last few times he had tried, he wasn't expecting much. He let it ring for a moment, knowing that nothing would come of this fruitless endeavor.

"GUN," said the voice on the other end. Bogo lifted up his eyebrows in surprise. The voice was a normal one, not a computer. Sounded vaguely human, although it wasn't exactly as if he knew what humans sounded like all the time. He rarely interacted with them.

"This is Chief Atlus Bogo, of the Zootopia Police Department. I need to talk with whoever is in charge of your personnel contracts."

"Personnel contracts are highly sensitive, Mr. Bogo, and we can't just give them-"

"He is running amok. In my city."

Silence came on the other end. There was still a small fuzzy signal, so the line hadn't died, but it was obvious that the person on the other end was consulting with someone. After about a minute, which seemed like an eternity to the cape buffalo with all too many things left undone, the voice returned. "Right away, Chief Bogo."

The phone rang again, but this time it was answered almost instantly. "Tanner." The voice was a deep masculine, and Bogo could tell that this man was one of the older folks, and held some scars deep within. Exactly the kind of person he'd expect to drive personnel and weapons contractees.

"Tanner, I'm Chief Atlus Bogo, of the Zootopia Police Department. I need information on a contract holder."

"ZPD? The hell are you doing calling me?"

"The hell is Miles Prower doing in my city!?"

"Miles Prower?"

"Yes, Prower. Tails, whatever you call him, I don't care. Two-tailed fox who thinks he's smarter than he is."

"I know Prower. What about him?"

"Why does he have a weapons-grade contract that gives him near limitless jurisdiction?"

"He's needed it to fight Dr. Robotnik. He shouldn't be using it unless there's solid evidence that Robotnik is involved."

"I see. What terms?"

Tanner told him. After the end of the short conversation, Bogo gently put down the phone, looking all the world like everything was right and normal. The buffalo took a deep breath, all the while thinking, 'That...is the kind of thinking I'd imagine Wilde would have.'

* * *

Finding rings is easy once you figure out the secret. Keep an emerald with you, or be one of us, a Chaos Touched. Us being Sonic, Knuckles, myself, etc. I had finished up with the Skytram robot's data core pretty quickly, and while the scan was running I decided to run off to grab some rings. Hopefully I'd be lucky and they'd show up not too far from me this time.

Rings are Chaos Manifestations, things that don't show up much unless they're near someone that either has a lot of Chaos power, like an Emerald, or has been Chaos Touched in some way. They generate a kind of barrier around whoever has them, deflecting any and all lethal force around them...for a few moments, at the cost of the ring's existence. They protect us, and in turn we help them be gathered up. I'm not sure exactly why it works exactly as it does, I just know that it does. They protect the user from everything; including internal damage. It's how Chaos Empowered Forms work. Normal people can't take that much Chaos energy, and neither can we.

Anyways, rings are plentiful in areas where mammals don't walk often. Alleys, side streets, abandoned buildings, you name it. Anywhere that Chaos energy has had the opportunity to build into a Manifestation. At which point, they start floating, and any Chaos Touched can come by and pick them up.

When I came back into my lab, I was both surprised and not surprised. I was not surprised that the scan had finished, which was good. I was surprised that once again, the Cyclone decided to have another meltdown. Last time it was the polar modulator, and this time it was the vacuum sealant for said modulator. I swore once I saw how much damage had been done; those parts were expensive, and needed to be either cleaned or replaced. I could do both, but it'd take a while. If I needed to fly anywhere, it'd have to be on the Tornado. Not entirely a bad thing; I hadn't flown the Tornado in months.

I grumbled to myself as I went over to the computer screen, the data core connected to it by a couple of wires, just sitting on the side. I lazily searched the results myself, only to perk up at one of the lines. 'Direct Connection to Server initiated'. A simple line. That had so many meanings.

All of the E-5400's were wireless. All of them. Every time they needed access to the server, they had a wireless connection to do it. A direct connection was fairly rare in an active core, because they had to be turned offline for repairs or maintenance. This one had been left on when it connected. Very few people knew how to do that safely, myself being one of them.

So was Eggman.

Real evidence then, that Eggman was in the city. It could have been someone else though, someone else who knew of the ethernet A3 port, the one it connected on. I looked through my own blueprints of the E-5400's. The A3 port wasn't there. Whoever used the port either found it by accident...or it was no accident.

I grabbed my bag, still complete with holes, and ran outside. I could get another bag later, but for now there was exactly one person I knew who would know of the port, or would know someone who did know of it. One of the best mechanics around, besides me.

I got to her shop easily enough. It was in Tundratown, the snowy cold area that reminded me all too much of the Ice Cap Zone on Angel Island. The first time I went through there, I almost got frozen solid a couple of times. The second time, I raced Sonic down a hill with an avalanche behind us. On snowboard. I don't seem to have the best luck with snow and ice...although it was fun.

The shop was a small two story gray building, almost in the middle of nowhere. It only had a small sign on the outside, saying 'Skye's Auto Repair and Parts' that even said it was hers. It was part of a strip mall, multiple stores connected together, although the left and right stores, of which I had completely forgotten their names, seemed deserted. Inside the shop was an office to the right, a large area that could fit two or three vehicles depending on size, and a stairwell in the back.

The doorbell rang noisily as I opened the door, immediately feeling relief at the heater warmed air. An arctic fox vixen looked up from her chair at the desk, her eyes cold originally before warming up as she recognized me. I would hope she would, I certainly bought enough parts from her to warrant at least that much.

"Miles! Come on in, what's new with you?" she asked perkily. She must be near the end of the day, she never acted like that otherwise. I hadn't seen any vehicles in the garage, so either business was slow or she had already finished.

"Hey Skye. Not too much, really, same old. How's the shop?"

"Same old, he says. There's nothing same old when it comes to you. You always come here for a reason, and I'm fairly certain you're the reason I'm still open!"

I forced a laugh. Worst part was that it was true. No one would ever let a fox work on their car, no matter how honest and good a mechanic she was. I told her years ago, when I first found her, to jump ship and head somewhere else, like Station Square or Holoska. She just shook her head and told me she wasn't leaving home.

"Nailed it in one Skye. Got any of the vacuum sealants, for about this big or so? The one in the Cyclone blew," I explained, holding up my paws to make a circle. Normally I'd prefer to just get straight to the point, but Skye already knew that bit. I had to at least try to throw her off some.

"It blew? Ouch, Miles, that's never a good sign. What pressure was it set for?"

"460. The polar modulator I was using also blew a few days ago, so that's what I'm thinking happened."

"A 460 blew? Please tell me you weren't in the room?" She asked as she checked some lists on her computer. She couldn't store too much down here, and had most of her parts in her apartment above the shop. But she did have spreadsheets of what parts she had, so she wouldn't have to go check too often. I had asked her why once. Apparently her apartment was much harder to break into than her shop.

I chuckled briefly. "No Skye, I wasn't in the room."

"Good, because if you were I'm not sure there'd be much left of you. I don't have any 460's, but I do have a 490 if that'll work. It's a few centimeters bigger." Hmm, that might not fit. The Cyclone was one of my best achievements, along with the Chaos Theory, and almost all of the parts had to be exact. I could make it myself, but it'd be easier to just buy it.

"I'll check once I get back, might be too big," I said, nodding to myself as I tried to complete my mental map of the Cyclone. She raised her eyebrow but said nothing. "Oh yeah, have you been hearing about the glitched E-5400's?"

"The security robots? Yeah. Some mammals were out there earlier convinced that I had serviced the robots at some point, and thus 'had to do it'." And once again, my faith in Zootopia dropped, which was a feat because I was sure it couldn't get much lower."

"You could always just try elsewhere Skye, it's a big world."

"You've said that every time Miles, and each time the answer's no. Zootopia's home, and I'm not leaving because of idiots."

"Why would they even think that though?" I asked.

She hesitated a bit before answering, "To be fair, I was one of the mechanics they hired out to check them over. I gave them a zero out of ten in respectability, there was just too much wrong." I looked at her inquisitively, silently asking her to go on. "Things like the weight; they weigh sixty kilograms, but even with all of their parts they should only weigh forty. The guns don't need cleaning fluid if they never fire, but it's there anyways. And what kind of robot only has two ports to the core?"

"Two? I thought industry standard was three."

"Industry standard is three. It's marked in the blueprints for some boneheaded decision like 'quicker bus retrieval' or some nonsense like that."

"Who else worked on the robots when they first came in?" I asked. Skye obviously couldn't have done it; she was good with mechanics, but not nearly as good with electronics. Still fairly decent though, especially compared to everyone else. Not to mention I trusted her, and I don't trust others easily.

"Um, let's see, it was me, Pawdro down in Central, and Vincent over in Hell Square." Did I mention Skye was an arctic fox? Because she is. And her nickname was Sahara Square was only one of the main reasons she finds fault with it. "Why?" She asked, starting to glare and smirk at me, like she just figured something out.

"Just wondering who else is getting bombarded."

"Ha, certainly not them. Pawdro's a hamster, he works on the Little Rodentia cars. Vincent's a bear, but he's gentle as it gets. Just don't take away his honey when you go see them, ok Miles?"

"Uh, I wasn't going to go see them!" ...Ok, I honestly didn't have much of an excuse. I'm not good at coming up with denials on the spot. Ask me to hack something, sure I can do it. Ask me to make something, I'm your guy. Ask me to tell a lie that you've given me all of two seconds to come up with? Hahaha...no. But I did have to at least try to lead her off course.

"You may be a fox but you got a lot to learn. Shoo! Flip the sign when you go, will you? It's closing time."

I did say I had to at least try to lead her off course. I never said I would succeed at it. I rolled my eyes and waved her goodbye as I left, the bell chiming happily as I walked out, turning her "open" sign to closed as I passed. I had names now. Names and locations. I rolled my head to pop my neck as I did some stretches. It was nearing around five or six now. They'd be closing shop. I'd have to try again tomorrow.

Good thing I'm not on a time limit.

* * *

"ZPD, open up!" Judy yelled into the silent air, knocking loudly on the metallic door. For the second time in two days, they had gone to the middle of nowhere place known as 'Miles Prower's house', and had found it empty.

"Carrots, he's not in. It's getting late too, maybe we should head back and come back in the morning," Nick said, his voice saying laziness but his eyes fully open, keeping watch to make sure the young vulpine didn't find them where they shouldn't be. The kid was nice, but not that nice. Judy was about to say something before they heard a large bang sound, almost explosion-like coming from inside. She grinned.

"No, Nick. Come on, we need to check out what made that sound. This is our best chance to see what's going on," Judy said, pushing open the door. She expected it to be locked, but instead the door opened with nary a sound. She looked at Nick, and put one of her digits up to her mouth in the 'shh' sign, and walked on in.

Nick shrugged, before following his partner. This wasn't the most illegal thing they've done on duty to get evidence. Most of the precinct was aware of their habitual 'loophole abuse', and most of them were aware that it was Judy's doing, not his. He was used to using words to get around people, and he was good at it.

The inside of the house had never seemed lively when they entered earlier. The walls were a dead grey, and it honestly seemed like no one lived there. They could see the living area, it's bright red couch having holes beyond holes in it. The metal door closest to them seemed a lot more ominous now than it had before.

Judy grasped it's handle and pulled, only to not go anywhere. She signaled Nick to get on the other side, in case something was inside, and pushed gently. The door swung open to endless black. Nick gasped, the sound filling the room. Judy looked at him in panic, wondering what he saw, only to see him looking smug. "Gotcha. It's just a hanger door."

Nick wandered on in after taking a quick look around, and flipped on a switch. Judy blinked and shielded her eyes, the lights already way too bright for the short time she spent in the dark. Nick had for some reason pulled out his sunglasses, and was seemingly unaffected.

The hanger was large, about as large as the living area room. Desks and tables filled the sides, and in the middle stood a large blue bipedal walker, leaking a clear fluid from one of its side panels. Farther away was a red biplane, it's propeller clear and see through. On the walls lay a variety of lights, blackboards, equipment, and many other things that both Nick and Judy had no idea. Wires led everywhere from a single point on the wall.

And on that single point lay a glowing cyan sapphire. They didn't need to stare at it for very long to realize exactly what it was. They had only seen pictures of them in the past, but here was one now, no bigger than one of Judy's paws, and more than easily able to fit in one of Nick's. It flickered a bit, in an almost hypnotic pattern.

A Chaos Emerald.

"Well, if we had any doubts before we shouldn't now," Nick muttered, wandering around the research laboratory. Judy didn't answer, too busy staring at the Emerald's glow. Why they hadn't seen it in the dark was obvious now; there was a cover over it that dimmed its light. Next to the Emerald lay a computer, fairly new, with the unharmed data core of a security robot next to it, connected via a couple of wires.

"Carrots?" Judy continued to ignore him, going closer to the waning and waxing glow of the Emerald. It wanted her to come closer, to look at it, to see it for what it really was. More than simply a power source, more than an artifact of energy.

"Fluff?" It was more than all of those. It held endless secrets in it's depths, vexing her to come closer. To see it, to touch it. To hold it, to grab it, to seek answers.

"Hopps?" It was so close. All sounds washed away, replaced with a hum that Judy only wished she could sing. It drew her in, and she knew what she had to do. She had to grab this emerald. Or was it a sapphire? It didn't matter to her, all she knew was that it wanted her to have it.

"Judy!" Nick yelled, grabbing one of Judy's paws before she could touch it, immediately breaking her out of her reverie. Judy flung herself about, her eyes wide in panic. Her breathing was fast, and it appeared to Nick that she was close to hyperventilating. "Judy, it's alright, it's alright. Listen, you're fine. Come on, let's get out of here."

His words calmed the bunny down, once she was rational enough to understand them. He had to repeat them a couple of times, but eventually Judy relaxed a bit. "Yeah...yeah let's get out of here. Nick that was...that was weird," her voice fluttered. Nick held on to her paw tighter.

"Come on, let's get out of here, come back in the morning," Nick said, glaring at the emerald, continuing to glow in its defiance. Judy nodded, and they left quickly afterwards. "You alright there, Fluff?"

"Ye...yeah. I'm fine," Judy said, shaking her head slowly as she massaged her eyes. "At least, fine now. That Emerald...it felt like it wanted me to grab it. Wanted me to have it."

"It's a thing, Carrots, it can't want."

"Maybe, Nick. Maybe."

* * *

>   
>  From: Sonic  
>  To: Tails
> 
> Tails! So I was searching around Empire City, and guess who I found? Vanilla! Apparently she and Cream mother moved out to Zootopia a few years ago (how did you guys not find each other by now, knowing Chaos and all?), and she had to take a business trip down to Empire City! By the way, no sign of Eggman, but the coward's good at hiding. I'll keep looking.

* * *

>   
>  From: Tails  
>  To: Sonic
> 
> Because I'm good at hiding in plain sight, Sonic, as is Cream. Vanilla stands out, but seems to not attract too much attention. You know, unlike the blur of what color may have once been blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's chapter 7. Let me know what everyone thinks, is it at least entertaining or interesting? If it is, at the least, then I've done my job. Until next time!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 8. Quick update on this full story; story's almost done. It'll be about 14-15 chapters or so (so we're halfway there!...approximately.). Hopefully it's a fun ride!

Sahara Square was a desert biome. What this meant, for someone like me, wasn't much different from running in the Rainforest District. There was a lot of room to move, areas that were clear of obstacles, and best of all, everyone who lived there were used to the sandstorms that would pop up every once in a while.

Which was good, because I was about to become a living one.

I remembered my mistakes from yesterday. I un-banded my tails, letting both of them fly free for the first time in...well, quite a bit. They're a hassle to re-band so I usually just left them tied together to save time, but no more. I did a few hover tests to stretch out the muscles a bit, considering I haven't flown myself in some time. And secondly, I put on my shoes.

Footwear in Zootopia was something that most mammals didn't wear, and from my experience in trying to blend in I've come up with a few reasons: One; it is slightly more comfortable, especially because most animals were designed to be barefoot. And two; they're all insane. That's about the only other reason I can think of. Maybe it's just because of the Chaos Effect, but I doubt it. Before, at the Rainforest District, I had to watch my speed. As Sonic and I found out early enough, moving at high speeds causes a lot of friction. Friction heats things up, which in turn hurts us. That's why almost all of us wear a special type of shoe (although Sonic does apparently wear his out at such a rate that some shoe shops actually have a 'Sonic' discount. Which they still make a profit on...somehow) that reduces friction.

My type of running, especially with tails unbanded, puts me a few inches above the ground, although as I've grown taller that's been a bit harder. Nowadays I really have to push myself to do that, but I'm pretty sure I still can. I continued to stretch as I strapped on my shoes. After only a few short minutes, I looked up and felt truly ready. No holds barred now, Eggman, Tails' here. I grinned, and shot out of my house.

It was still early in the day. Not as early as it was yesterday though when I ran through the rain forest. If I had to estimate it would have been around six or seven. I had my watch on me, but I didn't want to check. I had a feeling this wasn't going to take me very long. I hummed a tune to myself, something a lot more arid and dry than the rainforest's theme. Maybe add a few drums or something. Hmm...it's something that Sonic and I did to pass the time at West Island, and we continued wherever we went since. Apparently Sonic's been doing it since South Island, so I guess it just caught on.

The Square was a good fifteen miles away from where I lived, assuming you took the streets. I didn't bother; I just ran through the alleys. It had the bonus of having no one around aside from a few raccoons and weasels. Central passed by quickly, and I felt the heat rush into my face as I got into the Sahara Square.

The road was clean, somehow, despite there being massive sand dunes on all sides. I took a deep breath, the hot air burning my throat, as I kicked into gear, theme running strong in my head. Sand blasted back from my body as I took off suddenly. I had two things I had to do; one was to check on Vincent, a bear who worked on the security robots, and the other was to check out the physical address of an IP address. Vincent was closer, a mere mile or so towards the center of the Square. Not much more than a minute or two at my pace.

Speed limits in Zootopia were fairly odd, and had more to do with the region than for safety reasons. In Savannah Central, for example, someone could get to forty in the middle of the city, with highway speeds of over seventy or eighty depending on if they're in the elevated sections or not. Whereas in Tundratown, it's a crime to go over thirty due to all the ice, even after they've salted it and you have chains on. In Sahara Square, most speed limits are about thirty or forty, depending on how far into the dunes you are. People don't like being showered with sand.

I could never particularly understand that part. Avoiding sand isn't hard, you just need to go fast enough. And fast enough, for me, is about a hundred. Sonic's 'fast enough' is 'way too fast' though, so I may be a bit biased there. It's fairly common for us to have a dust trail tens of feet long. Or if you're Sonic, then miles long. I still don't know how fast he was going for that to happen. Pretty sure it was somewhere around 'sound is jealous'.

I opened the door to Vincent's, which was fairly easy to find. It was a low building, as most of them in the Square were, with a sign out front simply saying "Beary Good Auto Shop". I had to groan internally. Humans aren't the only ones to make bad puns. It was a simple shop; a small three car garage, an office, and a backroom. Larger than Skye's, of course, but then again I was surprised she was still in business.

A small-ish brown bear looked up as I opened the door to walk in. Blue overalls, covered with grease and stains, in other words, traditional mechanic. Trust me, I've worn those enough to know at least that much. A small name tag on the side said his name was 'Price'. "Hi there. What can I do for you?" Price said, not without enthusiasm. It was always a breath of relief if I found someone who didn't automatically distrust foxes. It was even better if they were good at what it is they were doing that I needed doing.

"Hi, can I talk to Vincent? I need to talk to him about something important," I asked, attempting to be as kind as possible. I almost said the joke that popped up in my head, 'You aren't Vincent, aren't you?' but I managed to hold my tongue. It was good too.

"Sure there," he said gently, pushing himself over to a phone. He pushed a button on it, "Vincent, sir, there's a customer here who needs to talk to you about something." I could hear the gruff voice of the other bear answer, although I couldn't tell what. I think it's one of those things that all intercoms are required to do by law; make things unintelligible for all sides.

The door to the back opened and one of the biggest grizzly bears I've ever seen walked out. His name tag read out 'Beary', and I had to make sure I didn't try to gulp or anything. This was a guy who was nearly double, if not triple my size. Sure I dealt with bigger, but you know, it's one of those things that I prefer not to deal with?

He scowled at me for a moment, before opening into one of the biggest grins I had ever seen. "Well hello there! And welcome to Beary Good Auto Repair! How may we bear our service to you?" And immediately, within seconds, a loud thunk as Mr. Price, the small brown bear behind the desk, had planted his face into said desk. Well. That's one way to relieve any and all tension. It was obvious that Mr. Beary here was doing that a lot. He was good at it too.

"I need to talk to you about the E-5400 models around the city," I said bluntly. His demeanor changed once more, from the happy go lucky bear that was in front of me, back to a more unfriendly face. He looked at me in the eyes, and I stared straight back. Yes, I was afraid of the damage that he could do, but not to me. He was a big guy...and I was small. And I was much...much...faster.

"I see. Very well then, what do you wish to know?"

* * *

Judy once again woke up in a cold sweat, breathing heavily. For nearly the fifth time that night, ever since she had almost touched that Chaos Emerald, it had been haunting her dreams, or more appropriately haunting her nightmares. Everywhere she looked, the dull glow of the cyan Emerald lay in wait, telling her to come and grab it, to lay her paws on it.

As she struggled to control her breathing, telling herself that it was only a nightmare, she looked over at the clock. Five thirty. Good enough, she thought, hopping out of bed, sending some of her stuffed animals soaring to the ground. Gently she picked up each one and put it back in its place on the bed. She had been having night terrors for most of her life, although they had gone away as she had gotten older, only for another flare up from yesterday's events, and one of the only things to break that chain was her stuffed mammals for some reason. They made her feel a bit childish, but she would rather feel like a child and get a night's rest than not.

'Bucky and Pronk aren't awake yet, and I doubt anyone else is either. Shower's probably free,' she thought, picking out some clean clothes before heading to the communal bathroom. Grand Pangolin Arms, her apartment complex, was too small to give bathrooms to every room. She had sprung for one with at least a toilet and a sink, which still cost her most of her monthly salary, but it did mean that showers were more crowded than she would prefer, despite living in a bunny burrow for most of her life.

The hallway was oddly silent as she passed, her ears roving around to hear the multitude of snoring sounds from the other tenants. The wooden floor would creak if anyone heavier than a bunny stepped on them, and Judy automatically avoided those spots, despite not setting them off anyways.

The shower was clear, thankfully, and probably would be for some time. She stretched out of her nightclothes, caked in sweat as they were, and relaxed as she felt the water across her fur. The nights were worst when she had first moved to Zootopia, nearly a year and a half ago or so. After Nick had become her friend, and moreso her partner, it was easier to disregard her terrors again. She rarely got them whenever she slept over at his apartment (one of the reasons she was always eager to sleep over there, although she would never tell him that.)

After being in the shower long enough, no more than ten minutes, she got out and changed into some clean non-sweaty clothes. She would only have ten minutes at the maximum before she had to leave for the Precinct, but it was enough time to check through MuzzleBook for a bit. She rarely used the app, preferring to just call or text, but many of her Bunnyburrows friends used it, and they got a sad smile from her as she looked over the updates.

Precinct One was fairly close by to her apartment, maybe only fifteen minutes away walking. She did have a ZTA card that she could use if she was late, but it was only a few blocks away so almost never took the train. Unlike Nick, who lived miles away and would have had to drive or train in. Living so close to the station was one of the biggest reasons she lived there.

The streets were still dark when she walked into the station. She could see Clawhauser, sipping peacefully at a cup of coffee, a couple of donuts sitting next to him awaiting their inevitable consumption, as one of the night Dispatchers, a female bengal tiger (Judy wasn't sure of her name. Her ID said 'Tailikins' which is just plain silly), finished up her shift. She waved kindly to Judy as she passed the desk. Judy waved back, and waited until Clawhauser looked up.

"Hiya, Benji!" she said when the cheetah finally looked up.

"Judy! Oh come on give me a hug! Nick not in yet?" Benjamin asked as he reached over the desk to hug the grey bunny tight. Judy heard Tailikins snicker a bit before leaving near silently. The tiger was really good at stealthy leaving.

"No, not yet, unless you've seen him already. I don't think he'll be in for a while yet," Judy said. Clawhauser shook his head and offered her a donut while she waited. Knowing how bad that amount of sugar would do to her...and her partner's sanity...she declined but thanked him anyway.

"Hopps. When Wilde gets in, head to Sahara Square, there's been a disturbance over there in the Oasis Square. It involves the suspect of the robot case," Chief Bogo said, somehow managing to sneak up on both Clawhauser and Judy. She hopped in surprise, before masking it and turning around to salute.

"Right Chief. We'll leave as soon as Nick gets here," she answered dutifully. Bogo nodded and moved to leave, only to get offered the same donut that Clawhauser had just offered Judy. Hearing a muttered 'thanks' she stared in awe as the donut left existence in crumbs from the cape buffalo's mouth as he walked away. "That's...incredible Clawhauser. How did you do that?" Judy asked.

"Do what? Oh that? Chief's a real softie once you get on his good side! Or the side with sugar at least."

"I've always thought that Buffalo-butt would be more inclined for those sour candy that mammals always have these days," Judy's partner voiced from behind her. The rabbit turned around to see Nick, standing there as he always is, one hand on a coffee cup, half-lidded eyes and a small contained smirk.

"Nick! Finally, you're here. Come on, we've got somewhere to go. Bye Clawhauser, forward us the case docs when you get a chance!" Judy said, grabbing Nick's dark blue tie and dragging him towards the garage.

"Sure thing Judy! Oh and Nick, we put in that request for you! They're in the glove department! You know, I wonder why she always drags Nick like that...can't be that comfortable..."

* * *

"I need to know how many ports on the E-5400," I said, keeping as straight a face as I could get.

"Two. Everyone knows that works on those things. Ridiculous number."

Well, that meant Vincent was out. So Pawdro was left, and if he didn't know then Eggman definitely was here. "Sure there isn't three?" I asked the giant grizzly. He looked thoughtful for a moment before shaking his head.

"No, only two that I know of. A1 and C2, near the middle of the torso are the only calibration ports," he said, his voice deep and thick, and vaguely Spagonian, maybe from near the Holoska area. He spoke common well enough though, and without much of an accent. Probably native to Zootopia, maybe his parents moved at some point?

"I see...By the way, you wouldn't know the quickest way to get to 1259 Nile Way would you?"

"Nile Way? That's more than halfway across the Square! Go left, take a right on Pyramid street, and keep going for a few miles. Quickest way there."

"Thanks Vincent!" I waved as I left, intentionally just walking out before breaking out into a run. The air inside of the shop was cooled by an air conditioner, so the full brunt of the hot air hit me as I walked out. I had only spent maybe ten minutes in there, at most. But it was enough time for me to get an idea of what Vincent is like, and there was no way that he'd know of the third port. I heard him talk with Price about the random customer questions, before shrugging and headed back off to the back.

That left only Pawdro, from Savannah Central, or Eggman. Or myself, I guess, but I know that I wouldn't make a patch that specifically targeted myself. That would be a bit...counter productive. That said, there was still that address that I had tracked down, so I wasn't completely down on leads yet. Actually, now that I thought about it, there were several. One in Tundratown, which I still hadn't gotten to yet, and the one here. I did want to check out Pawdro before I checked out Ice Cap Zone mark 2.

I rushed into an alleyway and flew up to the roofs. It was about seven or eight now, I wasn't sure without looking at my watch. I looked down at it. 7:34. The roofs in Sahara Square were closely designed to mimic those of Spagonia and other countries with hot weather, tile based ceramics that keep the inside cool and the outside hot. They also usually had a small incline to deal with rain, and it was this incline I was planning on using.

See, the streets of the Square got crowded pretty fast. Everyone wanted to travel when it was cooler, and before it hit ninety. That's also why most shops opened earlier, so they could close down in the middle of the day, the hottest, and simply try to cool down somewhere, or at least rest, similar to what some countries close to the equator do.

I walked to the top of the incline and estimated the distance to the next rooftop across the street. Thirty, forty feet. From there, it'd only be a hop, skip, and a few dozen jumps to get where I needed to go. A real rooftop run, Sonic might say. I walked back down and turned, and started to set my tails to go speed. I wasn't going to spindash; that'd ruin the tiles. But Sonic did show me how to boost from a complete stop...

I jumped suddenly, and hoped my speed, a rather large three hundred miles per hour, would be enough to carry me over. If not, I could fly, but I should at least attempt the jump first. Sure enough, my speed slowed down enough to land easily on the other side, and off I went. I'm pretty sure I knocked a few tiles down as I ran slash flew. Occasionally I had to do a short hop to jump between roofs, but in general I mostly just ran alongside the tops, enjoying my sprinting speed and watching the world fly beneath me. Sonic ran like this all the time because he could, and every time I did, I knew why.

So before someone asks why I took the rooftops, think about what would've happened if I used the road. A fox, traveling at one, or even two hundred miles an hour, on a crowded street. Wouldn't have been fun for them. At least at three hundred on the roofs I was no more than a blur, unable to be seen clearly. That said, by this point I was more focused on nabbing Eggman or stopping him as best I could than I was at remaining anonymous.

I arrived at my destination pretty easily; an abandoned factory of some variety, crowded in-between the other businesses. The sign out front had been washed and wasted away, and all of the doors had to be locked. Fortunately, I didn't need to care, as it had a skylight. In the desert. What kind of business has a skylight, in a desert biome? Oh well, I didn't need to care.

It was good enough for me.

I flew in with a crash, righting myself immediately. Conveyor belts and old machines laced the floor, and without a speck of dust. There weren't any parts on them, but I had a feeling I know what was going on. Sure enough, three E-5400's walked out of the darkness of the left corner, unable to be seen due to it being so bright outside. I took them out quickly, before they got more than a few shots off. These ones, unlike the ones in normal Zootopia, were painted red and orange. Eggman's colors. Certainly wasn't trying to fly quiet here anymore, was he? I heard some of the shots hit the glass outside, and I knew that my time here was limited.

I checked out the factory while I could. Only four rooms, the front, the back, where I came in, a bathroom, and another side room with a back entrance. I checked the front and saw nothing wortwhile, except for some bullet holes in the glass. Mammals had long since cleared the area, thankfully. At least I hope no one had gotten hurt.

The side door was where things got interesting. I had seen Eggman's lab a lot, and this looked a lot like one that he had recently vacated. The computer was still plugged in, slowly shutting down, probably wiped. That's ok, I knew how to get the data off anyways. Tools and parts lay across the floor and the shelves, along with what looked like an extra frame for a robot of some variety. It was offline, fortunately, because it looked a lot similar to the usual E-5400's, except that most of them don't have flamethrowers on both arms. I've only dealt with the variety once before, and that time it burned down the entire forest.

Maybe I should try and get some additional firepower...

* * *

>   
> From: Sonic  
> To: Tails
> 
> Hey Tails, quick update from me. No sign of Eggman yet, but GUN's been calling me and asking if I've found anything, because all signs they have point to him being here. I think they're crazy, but I'm gonna keep checking 'til I hear otherwise.

* * *

>   
>  From: Tails  
>  To: Sonic
> 
> I think they are too by this point, if you haven't found him yet. I think he's up here though, but no real proof yet. I found one of his old labs though. So he was here, at some point. Stay fast, Sonic.

* * *

>   
>  From: Tails  
>  To: Knuckles
> 
> Knuckles,
> 
> Mind if I take the time in a bit to fly up there and ask you a few questions? I want to see what you think on things.

* * *

>   
>  From: Knuckles  
>  To: Tails
> 
> Sure, so long as you don't bring me another Chaos Theory manuscript. I've barely read through the last one you brought up here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's chapter 8. Things are starting to come together. I say starting. Also, imagine Tails' little theme here to be similar to Spagonia' Rooftop Run mixed with Shamar or Mazuri. Pretty sure there's a cross somewhere. And now for another quick note on things;
> 
> Everyone reading this can choose how this story ends. I have two possible endings for this story; one that branches off into Zootopia only sequels (because they're fun to write, even though I'm not good at it), or one that ends on this story alone. So, everyone has about five or six weeks, I'll be putting notices at the end of all future chapters, to make their decision. Should I go for broke and write the sequels, or should I end Chaos Theory and not have any sequels? A couple of notes; sequels won't use too much of the Sonic crew, enough that I'm not going to label them crossovers. If anything, they may make cameos or occasional throwaway lines, but they won't have anything too important to show for it. So, let me know what you think. End with Chaos Theory or spin off into sequels?
> 
> Thank you all for reading all this. Until next time!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the start of a few chapters that...well, are a bit smaller than previous ones, but the plot is moving right along!

"So Carrots, you going to explain to me why we didn't go to roll call earlier? I mean, I get that you're excited and all that, but rules are rules," Nick asked, sitting patiently in the passenger side of their patrol vehicle. He normally would've had some kind of coffee, or at least one of Clawhauser's donuts, but his bunny partner had managed to drag him away before he could grab anything.

"Chief Bogo asked us to check out a disturbance in Sahara Square, the Oasis circle area in the middle, and told me to leave immediately once you got here. And since when did you care about rules, Wilde?"

"Ah Fluff, but you wound me!" Nick acted out, like his heart had been pierced by her sharp words. "I care about rules a lot Carrots! I care about how to bend them, subvert them, get them to work for me..."

"Right. Almost forgot who I was talking to for a second. Thanks for reminding me," Judy deadpanned. Nick gave her a smug grin that simply said 'No problem.'

"Oasis circle though, what's out there? The AC does work in the car right?" Nick asked, reaching for the cooling mechanism. As soon as he pressed it, cooling air brushed against their faces. Judy shivered unconsciously; the air was too cold too soon for her not to.

"It should. Chief didn't say, merely said there was a disturbance-" Judy started, before being interrupted by her vibrating phone. At the next light she pulled it out of her pocket, and without looking at it dumped it on Nick's lap. He looked down to the phone, and without asking, started searching through the latest messages.

"It's from Clawhauser, those docs you wanted him to send. Oh hey, there's a sale going on down at-"

"Nick, stop right there. Read the stuff from Clawhauser only," Judy glared.

"Aw come on Carrots, how often is it that I get your phone literally pawed off to me?" Nick asked, before getting the infamous 'Judy glare'. He shrugged it off, as he always did. "Fine, fine, I won't go looking through your phone. Now, there's two reports it looks like, one at 1259 Nile Way, we're assigned that one too by the way, and then another at 4699 Oasis circle. Bogo wants us to check out the circle first."

"Right. You put in a request for something, though? I think that's what he was saying?" Judy asked.

Nick grinned, and opened up the glove department. Small ammunition casings, metal cartridges with a blue tip. Judy remembered from her academy training what all the tips meant. The usual tranquilizers sometimes weren't enough, and so the ZPD had made different types of ammunition. Blue meant...

"EMP's..."

* * *

I left the robots relatively intact, and flew out the skylight that I broke in using. It was pretty simple now; Eggman had been in the city at some point, and then either him or another bad guy continued using the place afterwards, based on the computer. I salvaged what I could out of the hard disk, but I'd have to use my own to break any encryption it had. Knowing Eggman, that would take a while. So I decided to check out Pawdro first.

Pawdro was out in Savannah Central, near 'Little Rodentia'. I decided against using the same route I came in using, mostly because it'd take a bit longer. What I ended up doing was going through a few dozen paces of Tundratown, cut across the Rainforest District, and finally end up in Central. More transitions, but it was faster.

Tundratown doesn't really change a lot. It's slippery, it's icy, and it has always reminded me of, and will always remind me of, Ice Cap. According to Sonic it's also a lot like some areas of Holoska, but I'll have to take his word, I haven't run around that area like he has. Mostly because the one time I tried to, a penguin decided that it would be fun to use my tails as sleds. I don't know how the thing managed it either, but it did.

I was maintaining a sane pace. A little bit faster than most mammals could do, but nothing too overtly insane. I wasn't really in a hurry anymore, knowing what I do now. If Eggman hadn't made any moves yet besides the patch, then I had a feeling that maybe I had somehow surprised him. He does that sometimes; if you surprise him, he stops. On the other hand, if he's planned for what you do, he'll take every advantage of it. Take South Island for example. Sonic surprised him, and so he didn't have much time to really try to stop the hedgehog. On the other hand, Angel Island, where he planned for our every move until the Doomsday.

Savannah Central was always an interesting place to me. It was the place where it looked the most like an actual city. It wasn't too hot, wasn't too cold, had decent weather most days, and almost any mammal under the sun could be found there. Which is what brought me to the next auto shop, although it was less an auto shop and more just a spare parts shop. For rodents.

So normal sized mammals, like myself, aren't actually allowed in Little Rodentia, an area of the city that only rodents are allowed in, mostly because they like to make their buildings out of clay and ceramic or something else really brittle, and don't actually have any real foundations.

I never said they were smart.

But all that meant was that if you needed to get in touch with someone from Rodentia, you had to get someone else to act as messenger. Or use a phone service. I did both. I asked the first rat I saw (although now that I think about it I think he was a hamster actually. I can never tell; they look about the same to me) to go to Pawdro's place and bring him out, I wanted to talk with him.

Apparently then I found out that by doing so, I was threatening Pawdro with death or something, by the way the rat...or hamster...acted. Screamed in terror and ran into the smaller city. For a second I thought I almost gave the thing a heart attack. And in case anyone's wondering, no, no one had noticed the two tails behind me yet. Despite me being out in the open. If mammals were always this blind, it makes me think of how we managed to evolve. Then I remembered the Chaos Theory.

"You need Pawdro? What for foxy?" another voice spoke up, this one almost stereotypically valley girl-esque. Oh Chaos please save me. I turned around to see, an almost stereotypical valley girl rat, complete with phone and bright pink dress, chewing bubble gum and looking at me like I was an idiot.

"Like I said, I just want to talk to him. And since I'm not allowed in..."

"Yeah yeah I get it, I getcha. Well that's just too bad foxy there ain't none of us rodents who'll help you kill Pawdro, k?" She went back and looked at her phone, seemingly ignoring me.

I sighed. I can't help it, this kind of thing always gets on my nerves. "I don't want to kill him, I just want to talk with him."

"Then ya should've been born a rodent, eh foxy?" Without even looking up. Wow.

"You know what? Forget it. I'll find another way to talk to him," I said, throwing up my arms in defeat and walking away. I got out my phone to look like any other teenager, and I reconfigured my watch to catch the wireless signals of what the valley girl was doing. Hooray hacking and lax security. Legal? No. Fun? Yes.

Turns out she was texting a bunch of people, including Pawdro. She had all their names marked down too, which made it really easy to get his number from there. Smirking to myself, I dialed and called in. Less than a second later he answered.

"Pawdro's Parts, this is Pawdro."

"Hi Pawdro, this is Miles Prower. Mind if I ask you a few questions?" I asked. Pawdro sounded like a nice mammal, but I was well aware of sounding nice doesn't mean he was.

"Miles Prower. Haven't heard of ya. Whatcha need?"

Definitely not nice. Oh well. Wasn't expecting it. "I just need to ask you some questions regarding the E-5400's."

"About the robots? Look, I ain't got nothing to do with what's been happening, and I feel bad for the kid and all, but that's as much as I know."

"I know sir, listen, I just need to ask; how many ports to the data core do the robots have? It's for a school project!" I came up with instantly.

"Two, unless there's a third one sneaking around. Listen, why don't you just come into the shop instead of on the phone?"

"I uh...I can't sir. I'm not a rodent."

"*click*"

Well, that ended better than I'd thought. At least he only hung up on me, versus what he could have done, which was call the police. Pawdro and Vincent were clear, and I already knew Skye was clear (she didn't have much in the way of programming skills.), which left only a few options. At least I hoped that Pawdro and Vincent were clear, or at least Vincent. Vincent was nice.

One, Eggman was here, which is looking more and more likely. Or two, someone else was using his methods. Both are possible, and I'm not going to throw out one reason just because it's what I don't want to have happen. There were still a few spots in Zootopia left for me to check from the first IP tracking, so I still hadn't yet run out of leads. But considering the state of the lab I walked into earlier, all four of those spots were probably clear. I was still going to check, but first I needed to do something, so I headed back to my place.

* * *

"It was just so fast, one minute there was nothing then all of a sudden whoosh sand everywhere!" the hippo said, arms waving for maximum effectiveness. Judy smiled and nodded, and tried to prevent the hippo's bad breath from attempting to suffocate her.

When they had arrived in the Oasis circle, there was a disturbance alright. If by disturbance someone meant large amounts of unplanned sand had seemingly appeared all at once. Nick and Judy, after a bit of a time out for laughing from the fox, had decided to go and collect statements on what exactly had happened.

After the first three questions, most mammals ended up having the same story. Something quick had come in, and then the sands followed. Others registered climbing complaints about their neighbors, and hearing sounds on the rooftops, but in general it was more about the sand that decided to suddenly move in.

"Think these guys will learn that if they don't like sand, they shouldn't live in a desert?" Nick asked out loud, typing on the computer they had brought with them. It was used for notes more than anything, but it was useful for typing up simple reports like these.

"Hush, Nick," Judy said, covering up her own chuckles and attempting to keep a straight face. They were sitting in their cruiser with the AC on, hoping to beat the heat a bit. It wasn't too hot for most Square standards, only 95, but it was still uncomfortable.

"So what're you thinking Carrots? Freak windstorm?" Nick asked, shutting off the computer and putting it down beneath his seat.

"I don't know what else it could have been. The weather reports didn't notice an odd anomalies though. Once we get back to the precinct we'll take a look at those cameras," Judy said, turning the car over and starting to drive towards Nile way, ignoring most of the sand in the way.

The pair drove in a comfortable silence, only for that silence to come to a screeching halt as they reached the old factory. "Sweet Crackers...what happened here!?" Judy asked, stopping the car and getting out, ignoring the heated sand beneath her. The factory was still only mostly in one piece. It had a glass front, as if to advertise its wares, that was shattered from the holes punched through it. The door itself, a glass office type door, seemed fine and not broken into, despite the many shards lying around it.

"I don't think this is a forced entry, Carrots..." Nick said, stepping over the glass that he could see, and wincing when he accidentally stepped on a small shard. The door was unlocked, and sighed in relief when he pulled it out and stepped on the colder tiled interior.

"Not a forced entry, no. I'm going to set up a barrier, you call for backup," Judy said, getting out some elongated poles that they could use to cordon off an area, along with the infamous yellow police tape. She heard Nick radio the situation back into the station, and busied herself with setting up the area. It took only a few minutes, but she got it done quickly. "Got anything Nick?" she called out, as she knelt down to the warm sand outside, running her paws through the grains to get the shards of glass out. She knew what she was looking for; anything red, anything that could be used to identify someone, anyone.

"Yeah, this place is a dump."

"Nick!"

"I'm just saying. It's obvious why this place was called in for low priority. There's no one around, and the entire block is deserted. There was a shootout though, bullet casings are everywhere."

Their thoughts were swept away as they heard the incoming siren of another police vehicle. It stopped outside the line, and a giant grizzly bear, Officer Grizzoli, and his partner, an elephant named Francine, both stepped out.

"What happened here Hopps?" Grizzoli asked, his voice deep in baritone. He ducked under the tape while Francine simply stepped over it, and looked over the wreckage that was the factory.

"Couldn't tell you. We just got here a few minutes ago. Nick's inside, checking out the first couple of rooms. Careful, there's glass everywhere," Judy said, looking at the seemingly harmless shard in her hand. It was decent side, a bit bigger than her paw, and was the biggest piece she had found. She could see what had caused the hole; a small rounded side, caused only by a small bullet round.

"Gotcha. Got anything yet?"

"No, not yet. I'm gonna search inside with Nick."

"Hey, Wilde! Got anything yet?" Francine called in, picking Judy up with her trunk and tossing her over the glass, straight inside. Judy grinned and gave a thumbs up in thanks.

"Define anything! Because there's a whole lot of anything in here!" Nick's voice called out, from deep inside. Judy ran inside, her paws on her gun. Nick shouldn't have gone inside alone, but they were fairly sure that there was no one inside. Even the homeless would have left once they heard gunshots, and a scene like this would only have a body.

There were a few conveyor belts, looking only mostly free of dust. There were spent casings all over the floor, and there was some sharper glass on the floor. She looked up to see the skylight had been busted, probably from above judging by the amount of glass on the floor, but they'd have to check the roof first. "What did you find?" Judy called out, tiptoeing around the ground.

"Check this out. Someone was here, recently," Nick said, poking his face out from one of the side doors. Judy looked at him questioningly before moving over. "I'm not sure what to make of it either, Carrots. There's parts everywhere, and uh...you need to see this."

Judy walked in, and immediately knew why Nick had deferred to her. In the middle of the room lay a robot, looking much like the security robots that they had gotten more and more familiar recently. Except this one had large gas tanks on the sides of its arms, and a small opening instead of hands. A small 'flammable' symbol donned the sides of the tanks. She had seen enough movies to know what these were. And she knew that this was definitely illegal.

"Nick...call Bogo."

* * *

"Come on, come on, work for me...yes!" I yelled out, pumping my hands into the air as the Tornado's propeller started up. It took a bit of work, but once it got going it stayed going...unless it got shot down by a giant laser beam. Which happened twice actually, once by the Wing Fortress and once by the Egg Carrier. Those were fun times...(no they weren't.)

I made it back to my place easily enough. I thought I heard some police sirens, but it was just a few officers pulling over a speeder. As I sped past. That got a couple of double takes! Funny thing actually; even with Sonic and mine's existence well known, they still haven't put a speed limit on pedestrians. Probably because the only ones that can run that fast are us. I set my computer to try and break the hard drive's encryption while I was away.

I had originally wanted to take the Cyclone, the blue upgraded version of the Tornado that could turn into a walker, but seeing the poor Tornado, all red and dusty in the corner, made me rethink. It'd been a while since I'd flown the Tornado, after all, whereas the Cyclone was flown recently. One of the useful things about living in an abandoned air field is that it is an air field, which means long runways. And since there aren't any others around for miles, it's perfect for things like this, when I suddenly feel the need to fly somewhere.

Or in this case, feel the urge to go somewhere, but in order to do it I have to fly. Oh well, it's not a chore. I like flying.

I still had the locks engaged on the wheels, and the propeller was going slow enough that it wouldn't fly out without me. I looked over the gauges, old as they were, to make sure everything was good. Fuel was good, I had more than enough. Temperature was cold, but it'd go green here soon, once the engine got warmed up a bit. Smell was good, no signs of leaking or anything. I smiled, disengaging the locks, and slowly drifted forward.

I let my instincts take over by this point. I engaged the throttle, slowly going faster and faster. I could run faster than this, but feeling the power of the machine, the machine that I made, is a power unlike any other. Even full Chaos Empowerment is nothing like this.

"Yeah!" I screamed out as the wheels left the ground, and I was fully airborne again. Where I was situated was practically a desert, another good reason to have an air field out here. I wasn't too sure why Zootopia doesn't actually have an airport, they certainly had the room for it, but I wasn't complaining. I drifted out towards the west, and shot over the mountains near Tundratown.

I eyed another switch, looking nothing similar to the other gauges and switches on the dashboard. I was going a good pace, and it'd take me about two or three hours to get where I was going. I could cut it down to an hour if I pressed it. I thought about it, and eventually pulled out my phone to warn Knuckles that I was coming a bit sooner than planned, although he probably already knew. He always knew, somehow, whenever someone new, or old, was on his island.

Ten years ago, I met Sonic the Hedgehog. Ten years ago, I helped him run West Island, gathering up the seven Chaos Emeralds. It wasn't my first run in with the Emeralds, but it was one of the most important. Ten years ago, I got shot down in the Tornado, and Sonic was on his own on Wing Fortress.

Using some spare parts and no small amount of luck, I installed a rocket engine. On a biplane. It wasn't my best thinking, but hey, I was six. That rocket is actually still installed, and these thoughts ran past me as I gleefully hit the unknown switch.

Accelerating from around one hundred fifty miles per hour to around five or six hundred to a few seconds is quite a feat. Fortunately my body was used to it, and the world simply...shifted. The Tornado sang as its wings fluttered almost uncomfortably in the high speeds. Ordinary biplanes would have simply disintegrated in this kind of speed, but the Tornado was more than just a biplane.

It represented the first bit of the Chaos Theory I had ever had. And as I looked over the incoming land, a lone island floating in the middle of the air, I breathed deeply. I had gotten lost in thought again, but for only about an hour or so. Time to land again, on a small island that held one of the biggest surprises in all things Chaos.

Angel Island.

* * *

>   
> From: Tails  
> To: Sonic
> 
> Sonic,
> 
> I'm heading to Angel Island for a bit. Want me to ask Knuckles anything?

* * *

>   
> From: Sonic  
> To: Tails
> 
> Tails,
> 
> Punch him on the nose for me? And tell him he still owes me money for helping him out with Chaos back in Station Square.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's nine. Let me know what you think, if you enjoy it, don't enjoy it, hate it, etc. Thanks, and until next time!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Putting this one up a day early due to me leaving for a week or so, and not able to put it up on Wednesday.

"And you've already searched for who owned this factory?" Chief Bogo asked deeply, looking concerned over his glasses at the wreckage in front of him.

"Yes Chief, a llama named Patricia Spitshine. She filed for bankruptcy about three years ago, and then the banks took the property back, but hasn't been able to sell it yet," Grizzoli answered, looking down at his documents, a quick report that he had asked Clawhauser to pull.

"And because the bank hasn't been able to sell it, someone just walked in-" Nick started.

"I get it, Wilde," interrupted Bogo, "there was no power here for your usual camera hijinks." Bogo remained silent for a moment, obviously deep in thought, before sighing aloud. "Remain silent on this, and find the mammal that was here, either the one that broke in or was here before, I don't care which. I want them in a cell by the end of the day!" the cape buffalo announced, before walking away and signaling to one of the other detectives, a grey wolf, to come in and take a look.

"Well, Carrots, that went about as well as I wanted it to go," Nick said, turning to his partner. Judy shrugged from where she was, giving her own statement to the detectives, as well as what she had found out. Bogo had asked her, shortly after arriving, if the skylight was how a perpetrator had come out, or in. There was very little, if any glass on the roof. She was sure that whomever had broken in used the skylight, but then wasn't sure how they got out besides maybe the same.

"It went well enough. Besides, we do have a lead."

Nick stared blankly for a moment, before comprehension dawned on his face. "Right, our lead. Any ideas on where to find him?"

Judy smiled, before pulling out her phone and scrolling to one of the many documents she had contained. "A few. He has to have a few places that he hangs out at besides his house. He also has to have other friends around besides Sonic."

"You already searched for them, haven't you," Nick said, stating it in such a way that it wasn't a question. "Sly bunny."

"Yep. One of them lives in Zootopia actually; Vanilla Rabbit and her daughter Cream. They don't live far from here actually, just over in Central."

"Then we should go. If Chief Four-Eyes can't wait for the end of the day we have our work cut out for us." Judy just nodded before making sure that they weren't needed still at the scene. They would have to write up the initial reports later on, but they could do that afterwards. For now, they had a rabbit to catch.

* * *

Knuckles already knew where I was going to land. I had never been too sure how he knew that, but he always did. So I landed where I always had; a bit after the beach in the primary jungle zone, where we first stepped on Angel Island.

The jungle around me was thick and alive still, despite being about a mile in the air. Ten years ago Eggman had burned the entire thing to the ground in an attempt to kill Sonic and I. He failed, obviously, but it apparently hadn't set the growth back by all that much, given how thick it was. Vines and trees went around every corner, and sometimes it seemed there weren't any pathways at all from here.

"Thinking about old times, Tails?" Knuckles voice reached out. The red echidna, a bit taller than me even now, appeared out of one of the side bushes. Despite red being one of the most visible colors, I had somehow always failed to keep track of him sometimes, especially when he was on Angel Island. He's a lot stealthier than he looks. He still had on those metal boots of his, and his enormous gloves that show how exactly he had gotten his name.

"Just thinking about the growth. I'm surprised it's this thick only ten years later!"

"Ash'll do that for you. Used to be thicker. Trees are still new and haven't gotten to old heights yet, but the blackberries are loving all this sun. Whatcha need? You're not one to simply come out this far for botany."

A lot of people and mammals think that Knuckles is dumb. 'Dumb muscle' they'd like to think, that just anyone can outwit and fool. I can tell you here and now that he's not dumb. Naive, certainly, but he knows his stuff.

"I wanted to ask about the Super Emeralds," I said, looking into his eyes to try and show how serious I was. I think I got a little snicker out of him, so I'm suspecting I didn't succeed. Don't try to out-tough Knuckles, he'll just laugh at you, and then maybe punch in the arm. Lightly. As in it'll only give you a dead arm for about ten hours versus ten days.

"The Supers? What about 'em?"

"Are they still around?"

Knuckles gave me a blank look, before waving me onwards through the brush. "No, they're not around. The Super Emeralds were just augmented Chaos Emeralds. The Master took their power and amplified it. Once the Chaos Emeralds left the island, the Super emeralds also left with them."

"So we've been dealing with Supers ever since we came here?"

Knuckles gave another questioning glance. "No, the amplification wears off after a short time, unless the Master is in close contact with them. You know this, Tails, you've created your own Chaos Emerald, remember?"

I thought idly back to one of my first Chaos experiments; one in which I had analyzed and simply tried to remake a Chaos Emerald. I'd succeeded, but it had been blown up during the ARK incident. The lessons learned from that experiment I'd still take to my grave. If I'd done anything differently, I realized later on I could've torn the entire world asunder.

"I know, I just want confirmation to make sure of a few things."

"Alright, Tails. What is it that you actually need? Why come to me, and not Sonic or Shadow? Hell, you're the foremost expert on Chaos there is."

"I uh...I need a sounding board."

"Ah. Alright then, talk. There's a new grove in Mushroom Hill that's threatening to jump ship to Angel Island zone, and I need to take care of it."

Knuckles had been leading me away from the beach for a while, and if I never before mentioned that he knew all of the shortcuts on this island better than anyone, well, he knows all of the shortcuts on this island better than anyone. I recognized that that's where we were heading, if only by the seemingly random mushrooms that had started sprouting up, nearly eight feet tall in height and more than big enough to literally bounce off of.

"Ok..." I said, before trying to reconvene my thoughts into a single train. I took a deep breath, and began.

"Eggman's in Zootopia, he's doing something that involves the security robots and attacking us with them. I've been fighting him using hacks so far but I think it's only a matter of time before he shows himself. Sonic and GUN think he's in Empire City. I ran across one of his labs earlier that had a mech with flamethrowers attached to it, and there were a lot of parts around for similar modifications.

"To top it all off, if that wasn't all, Zootopia is a city with a lot of mammals in it, and a lot of innocents could be hurt. And I wanted to see if I could use the power of the Super Emeralds to, if I needed to, get Chaos Empowered still. And I think there's a Chaos Effect going on, or will happen soon. The yellow Emerald is beginning to flicker in that way that usually means one is either happening, about to happen, or has happened shortly before."

I took a deep breath, about ready to go on, before Knuckles raised his hand at me. "Tails, slow down. One; Chaos Effects are noticeable. And I haven't noticed anything strange with the violet emerald. Two; Zootopia is a city with a police department. Don't be afraid to go to them. Just because Sonic is doesn't mean that you should be. Remember how helpful the ones down in Station Square were?"

I nodded, remembering the aftermath of Perfect Chaos' rampage through the city. It had taken all of us, including the humans, to try and save as many people as we could. I have never lost my innocence faster than I did that day. My memory still rang clear of pulling cold, clammy, and dead hands out of the water.

"I know, Knuckles, but I think, I think they think that I have something to do with it. With all of it."

Knuckles sighed, and slowly massaged his head. He had always been amazing at keeping a level head, and sometimes when things just get to me a lot more than they should, I go to him to try and figure something out. He's a good sounding board, if only because he doesn't give his opinion until he thinks he has one. That said, if he makes an opinion he'll stick to it, stubborn until the island falls again.

"I'm not going to ask why you think that is, Tails. That's your responsibility. Now then, you wanted to check if you can still turn Super?"

I nodded solemnly. I had plenty of rings left, which is good. Because I have a feeling I'd need them.

* * *

Judy knocked softly on the small wooden door. They were in a fairly normal neighborhood, small kids out and about playing on the streets of all sizes and shapes. Most of the houses looked similar, only small differences marking the kind of person who lived where.

This particular house, a small brown two bedroom house at the most, had a mostly groomed lawn but with some weeds still managing to shoot up. Not meticulous and perfect, but shown love and care all the same. "You sure this is the place right?" Nick asked, looking around.

"341 Tail lane. According to the most recent data we have, this should be it," Judy said, knocking again loudly on the door. She thought about calling out loud, but that could make the civilians nervous. And this was as unofficial as they could get while in uniform.

The door opened slowly to a younger looking rabbit, despite being Judy's size, with cream colored fur that had splotches of darker brown. Her long ears seemed to nearly hit the floor, and were nearly half the size of the doe's body. "Yes? Oh! I'm sorry officers, how can I help you?" she said, her voice airy and cheerful.

"Hi, I'm Judy Hopps, of the ZPD. Is your mother around? We just want to ask a few questions," Judy said lightly, trying to keep an upbeat tone. She saw Nick suck in a breath next to her, and tried to get him to quiet down a bit.

"No, I'm sorry. Mom went to Empire City for a few days. She'll be back on Tuesday I think. If you'd like I can write down your questions and have her get back to you?" the girl responded.

Nick and Judy shared a glance, and slowly nodded their heads simultaneously, "That would be great, thanks!" Judy said with a smile.

The girl smiled in response, and opened the door wider, starting to look around for something. "Come on inside, I'll try to find a piece of paper to write down your questions. Do you want anything to drink?" she said, suddenly looking all over the various tables for an unused paper. The inside was rather quaint, Judy noticed. Pictures of various mammals, mostly of the girl and an older rabbit that must've been her mother, lie around on the walls. The carpet was a comfortable hue of brown, almost earthen, and various tables and chairs lie scattered around. It gave Judy a quick pulse of homesickness, which she quickly squashed down.

In the middle of the living room lay a blanket, with a small blue thing eagerly watching the TV on mute. It seemed to be some kind of children's show, which one neither Nick nor Judy knew. Nick had to stare at it for a moment. It had wings, very small wings, and a head the size of its body. Tiny little arms and feet, and a...Nick wasn't sure if the ball-like thing was floating on top of its head, or what.

"No thank you, we're fine," Judy said once she had gotten a quick look around. The girl nodded and continued to run around, moving empty envelopes around and checking in various drawers.

"Cheese, where's the paper? I can't find any!" she announced shortly afterwards. The blue thing, Cheese, finally looked up with its giant head, and for some reason a bow tie, a small little orb, as Nick started to call it, floating above it, and started to fly around on its tiny wings.

Nick and Judy just watched in amazement as the thing, which is about the only proper term to call it, flew around the house also opening up drawers, cabinets, boxes, just about anything it could find. Finally the young rabbit girl piped up from one of the others rooms, "Found it!" She walked back out into the main room, and looked at the two police officers. "Sorry about taking so long! We've moved a lot recently, and I never know where some of the basics are. Anyway, so what kind of questions do you have?" she asked.

"Well, just a few basic ones. What's your name?" Judy asked.

The rabbit suddenly looked shocked, and pulled her ears over her face. "Oh, I'm so sorry! I completely forgot to introduce myself! I'm Cream!"

"It's okay Cream. Do you know Miles Prower?"

What they were expecting could've been anything. Polite, friendly 'no', or a heartfelt 'yes'. Instead what they got was a large sigh, before she said, "Yes I know him. What'd he do now?"

Judy looked at her partner, who shared the glance. This time he asked the question, "What do you mean, 'what did he do now'?"

"Tails always gets in trouble over stuff. Most of it's not his fault, but he and Mr. Sonic still get blamed. Although recently he has been a bit more reclusive..." Cream trailed off.

"When did he start to get more reclusive?"

Cream looked thoughtful for a moment. "About maybe a year or so ago, when he was about to go into the final year of school."

Judy frowned a bit and went back to trying to think of the next question. Reclusive-ness was something that most criminals picked up easily; just look at Nick and Finnick. Although, if he was going to school that would make sense, as he'd have to concentrate on that. Fortunately, while she was off thinking and concentrating, Nick picked up the conversation, "Wow, he's in his final year?"

"I think so. The most I've gotten out of him recently was an email to avoid the security robots due to being hacked."

Nick focused his eyes on the harmless light brown rabbit in front of him, "Do you still have that email?"

"Yes, of course."

"Can you forward it to this address?" Nick asked, quickly grabbing one of the notepads that he had remembered he had and writing down an email address. As he handed it to her, he finally found an opening to say what he had noticed when Cream had first opened the door.

"Is having five fingers hard on all of you?" he asked, smiling softly. He didn't want to give the impression that he meant any offense.

Cream smiled back softly, putting out her paws in front of her. Exactly like Nick had said, and exactly like Tails and Sonic, she too had five fingers instead of a rabbit's usual four. "Not particularly. Most people don't really notice. Just a side effect I think."

"A side effect? A side effect of what?"

"A Chaos Effect," Cream said, looking up in confusion.

* * *

There are times when I hated watching Sonic turn Super. Or, if I had to call it's actual name, his 'Chaos Empowered Form'. I think I was six when I saw it for the first time, back on West Island. Sonic couldn't control it well, and as soon as he even thought about the Emeralds, his normal blue would suddenly turn a golden-yellow, gained invincibility and double speed, which made it immeasurably hard to catch up to him. It was a good thing West Island had so many rings around.

When I tried to use the Chaos Emeralds, at least at first, I had found that I couldn't, not like Sonic or Knuckles could. But if the Emeralds were powered up, augmented by the Master Emerald, the giant green gem that Knuckles devoted his life to guarding and made the Floating Island be able to actually fly, I found that I could, at least when I was on Angel Island. I had tried only once afterwards to turn Super, back when we were fighting the Metal Overlord, and had found that I couldn't. Chaos helped there nonetheless though.

I hadn't been to the Hidden Palace in years, and I noticed that Knuckles didn't take me there. Instead, he took me to the shrine of the Master Emerald on the outside, the one where Chaos had broken free so long ago. I need to stop talking like that, it makes me feel old. Seriously, it had barely been like six years. That's not that old.

"Here. Simply try and touch the Master, and absorb its power to you," Knuckles said, sitting down on the top step just slightly below the Master Emerald. Why it was here instead of the Hidden Palace, I don't know, and I wasn't going to ask. Knuckles' business is Knuckles' business.

I raised my hand slowly and felt the Emerald, every edge on it's facets, looking like all the world a giant version of the Green Chaos Emerald. There was a power underneath it, the same power that the Chaos Emeralds had but certainly not chaotic. Or rather, not as chaotic. It was an odd feeling, after working with Chaos so long as I had.

It hummed and throbbed with energy and power, and I could feel it just trying to break out. "Knuckles, are you sure this is safe?" I asked, hesitating to put my hand back on it. I recalled an old tale that Knuckles had told me, about how Metal Sonic, or an earlier version of him, had absorbed the Emerald's power to turn into a Chaos Empowered Form. I hadn't seen it, and I haven't seen anything like it, but if Metal Sonic could do it than so could I. Which is what scared me more than anything else.

"As safe as anything else with the Emeralds."

"So not at all."

"Just about."

"Great..." I said softly, taking a deep breath and steadying myself, before pushing myself to touch the Emerald again. Again the power showed up, although this time it seemed a bit more...curious. It didn't wax and weave like it did before, but seemed eager to see what this new outlet was. Sentient, this Emerald most definitely is. The power seemed slightly kinder than most other forms of Chaos, which I just attributed to it being the ruling gem. Of course it would have more control.

"And there you go," Knuckles said, his voice breaking me out of my reverie. I wasn't sure how long it had been, but my body had absorbed enough energy to turn me pseudo-super, my usual orange fur glowing white every second or so. Once I took my hand off, I could feel the power that I had absorbed from the Master, and it was unlike anything I had felt before with the exception of once.

I mentally checked my ring tally, and exactly as before, the rings were disappearing, protecting my body from my own chaotic energy. Chaos Empowerment was dangerous, and not a tool to use lightly. Extremely self-destructive, the only reason Sonic and I could use it to begin with was because of the rings. Bodies weren't meant to be able to take this much energy, and I knew that Knuckles threw a punch at me, even with all his strength, it would just bounce off. He had surprised Sonic out of Super form once, but he hadn't hurt the blue hedgehog, but he did knock the Emeralds off of him.

And to think, the only reason the rings exist is because of a Chaos Effect. That others know of them at all is only because of the Chaos Theory. 'What a world we live in...' I thought.

* * *

"A...chaos effect?" Nick asked, slightly worried.

"Yes, a Chaos Effect. It's what happens whenever someone grabs a Chaos Emerald, full on grabs it, barehanded. There's a reason that most of us that are Chaos touched use gloves," Cream explained saintly.

"That...doesn't make any sense."

Cream shrugged. "I know it doesn't, but that's the only thing that fits, according to Tails' Chaos Theory."

"Chaos Theory?"

"It's a paper, written by Tails, and published by GUN. Most Chaos experts swear by it, but they don't know who wrote it. GUN ensured that at least. It says that Chaos energy is driven by life, contained within the Chaos Emeralds and let out during a Chaos Effect."

"I'm...confused. Carrots, are you confused?" Judy nodded her head quickly. "Yeah, she's confused too. Try to explain?"

Cream chuckled a bit, a light laugh that seemed to somehow make the room just a bit brighter than it was. "Chaos energy is all around us, and it's the energy of life, essentially. It responds to life, both good and bad, and responds more strongly according to emotions, both good and bad. Usually, it does nothing or goes away quickly, but if it's let out, by say a Chaos Effect, it gives a stronger response."

Cream continued, "So say there was a Chaos Effect right now. Happening to one of you two or me. The Effect would be pretty weak, according to the Chaos theory, but if something happened to say, Cheese, it would be a lot stronger because of it. Does that make sense?"

"More sense yeah. What kind of Chaos Effects are there?"

"I think Tails once had a database of them, and it boiled down to 'literally anything'. One time he swore that he was seeing things happen before they happened!"

"Interesting Miss Rabbit...one last question for you. Do you know where Mr. Prower currently is?" Judy asked, as Nick froze up inside. His mind wandered to the last few days; hearing things that weren't there, feeling things that hadn't happened, seeing something that hadn't occurred. Was he...going through a Chaos Effect? Is that even possible? He knew that he hadn't touched a Chaos Emerald at all!

"Now? No, sorry. Have you checked his house near the abandoned air field near the Rainforest district?"

"Yes we have. Thank you so much for your time and all the information Miss Rabbit. Please have your mother come by or call us as soon as she's available," Judy finished up. Cream smiled and nodded, and politely led them out the door.

As she heard the police cruiser leave, the big giant tank that it was, Cream quickly pulled out her phone and dialed one of the number's she hadn't used in years. "Come on Tails...pick up!"

* * *

  


>   
> From: Tails  
> To: Sonic
> 
> Sonic,
> 
> I went by Angel Island earlier. Found I still have a Super form, which is good. Bad news is I still have a Super form.

* * *

>   
>  From: Sonic  
>  To: Tails
> 
> Tails,
> 
> Well hey, now you know you still have a Super form. Give Knuckles a punch in the shoulder for me, will ya? I haven't been able to pay him back for the time he thought punching me in the arm was a good idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's chapter 10. The explanation, or at least part of the explanation, of what Chaos Theory is. If it doesn't make sense, don't be surprised, there will be another explanation later on that I hope will...well, explain everything. Of course, that's not for a small while yet. Let me know what you think of it so far.
> 
> Also I apologize to everyone that hates Cream. I had intended for her to be literally a one-chapter character, and then things kind of took their own turn. Oops.
> 
> Until next time.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 11. Where big things happen, and bigger things don't happen. Yet.

I thanked Knuckles, and after ignoring Sonic's last bit of advice (Sonic, if you want me to punch Knuckles, you'd best be the one controlling my arm.) I walked back to my plane, plowing through jungle and vines that I swatted at to try and leave me alone. Exactly as I left it, the red beautiful biplane was sitting there patiently, waiting for me to come back to it. Just like always.

I checked my phone as I hopped into the cockpit. One new message. I wasn't too surprised that I hadn't heard it ring, or even if it did ring. Angel Island is kept far enough in the clouds, and mountainous enough, that it doesn't get very good cell service.

I absentmindedly put in my password while doing all the standard pre-flight checks. Everything was good until I heard her voice; I hadn't talked with Cream in years, ever since we did that prank on Sonic. "Tails, it's Cream. ZPD just visited, they asked questions about you. I don't know where you are, or what you've been doing, but try to stay away from Zootopia until whatever it is that's going on dies down."

I looked down at my phone in amazement. I had completely forgotten that Cream had my number. She sounded worried there, and on the corner of Angel Island I had reception. I wondered idly if I should call her back before the choice was made for me, the screen lighting up and proudly declaring the rabbit had decided to try again. I let it ring for a bit, debating in my head, before I took a deep breath and moved the phone to my ear.

"Hi Cream," I said, staring out into the distance as I focused on my hearing.

"Tails, finally. I don't know if you got my message or not -"

"Yeah I got it. What kind of questions did they ask?"

"Simple ones, mostly. I started talking about the Chaos Theory and they seemed really interested in that. The fox especially. I managed to only answer their basics."

"Hopps and Wilde came to your house?"

"You know them? Tails, I know you've been up to something, I recognized you from that robot fight on the news, as well as the skytram shootout, as they're calling it now."

"Yeah, they came to my place a couple of days ago. Cream, don't worry about it, Sonic and I have this covered."

I heard her sigh loudly on the other side. "Whenever you or Mr. Sonic says that, it only makes us more worried, you know that?" she asked.

"Cream, I know, but trust me, it's just a bunch of robots."

"And Metal Overlord was 'just' a robot?"

Ouch. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, but rabbits don't mince words. If you give them an opportunity they will go straight for the kill. Kind of an odd saying to apply to harmless herbivores truthfully...

"This is different, we're older now, I know what I'm doing."

"I know you do, and that still scares me. Tails, I hadn't heard a word from you in years, and then I find out the police are after you, again!?" She was very good at yelling at me but not yelling. I have to learn that trick from her sometime, she'd been doing it for years. I tried to ask her once, but all she did was smile and wave. Harmless little doe my tails...

She continued, "Tails, I'm not just going to sit this one out. I've been seeing the signs too. At least try to stop by so we can compare notes."

I struggled to come up with a reason to say no, any reason at all, but my mind came up blank. "Alright, fine. I'm on Angel Island at the moment, it'll be late when I come in. What time tomorrow?"

"Just come whenever you get in, I don't care what time."

"Alright, fine," I took a deep breath. It was about three in the afternoon, I left at around noon, should be back around five or six, plus the usual checks afterwards. Seven or eight then. "Fine. I'm leaving Angel Island now, should be back by seven or eight."

I heard her breath a sigh of relief, "Alright. Seven or eight it is. See you then." and then silence as she hung up. Wow, I must've really gotten to her, I didn't think she was that worried.

"That your girlfriend?" Knuckles voice almost sang with kept in laughter.

"No. And she's not my girlfriend."

"Your bunny-friend then."

I glared at the red echidna, who chuckled softly. One of these days, Knuckles, one of these days...

* * *

"Well, that was a big waste. Where to next, Carrots?" Nick asked. Judy breathed deeply before responding.

"We check out Miles' house again. If he's there, we bring him in. If he isn't, we check out that lab of his."

Nick looked over at the bunny with a worried look on his face, "You sure you're up for that Fluff? I mean, considering how close that Emerald came to you yesterday I'm not so sure that's a good idea."

To Nick, it appeared as if a suddenly older Judy, but only by a few years, had suddenly appeared out of nowhere in place of the younger one, looked straight at him and said "It isn't," at the same time as a younger Judy, the one in reality said "It isn't, but it's the best we've got." The images blurred together, and vanished as suddenly and quickly as they had come. Nick merely nodded and shook his head, trying to get the images out of his head.

The way out to the Rainforest district was long, especially on the outskirts where Miles lived. "Hey Carrots, what do you say to just doing a stakeout at the place if he isn't there? We don't have to go in," Nick said, thinking about what the hell just happened a few minutes ago. If nothing else, he could ask Miles if he's just going crazy or what.

Judy sighed, before realizing that Nick had a point. "Alright, we'll just do a stakeout. Write up the reports from this morning, and check out what that Chaos Theory thing is," she said quickly, struggling to get her own mind under control.

She had had more than enough of being in a Chaos Emerald's presence. Even now, the feeling that the Emerald had possessed over her made her shake and start. Uncomfortable stress sweating, which she could just play off as being hot if necessary, was starting. No, she wouldn't go near an Emerald if she had any say on it, and anyone that wanted to go near one of them had to be insane.

The drive out was calm once they hit the outskirts and the roads started drying up. They could see the end of the road easily, in pretty much one of the only places that could be considered a house. Judy started thinking how best to hide their car for a stakeout.

"Dispatch, this is Cruiser 247, officers Wilde and Hopps. We believe we found a possible suspect with cause for the break-in to the abandoned factory earlier this morning, but need more time. We're going to do a stakeout tonight, over," Nick said, his voice forcing Judy's mind to come back to the forefront.

"Understood 247. Requesting current location, over."

"4192 Leaf street, the abandoned air field out past the Rainforest district."

"Ok, I gotcha. You'll have to talk to Chief about pay, but I'll put you down for that," Clawhauser's voice suddenly cut in, listening to the other Dispatcher.

"Thanks guys. Wilde out," Nick said, hanging up the radio with a small breath. "And now...we wait."

"I thought it was my turn to get the radio," Judy whispered conspiratorially, "oh well. I guess I'll just keep watch while you handle the reports." Nick's ears flicked behind him as he realized how much work she just pinned on him. He whined softly as she patted his shoulder with mock pity, grinning evilly.

* * *

I had always loved flying. It didn't matter for how long, or to what place. If it involved traveling through the air, I could get you there. Even when Dark Gaia broke the world, the only thing it did for me was have Sonic require me to fly him around to the different continents. Not as if I didn't fly around to them anyways.

I looked down below at the almost extremely obvious police cruiser lying in wait. They had put dust on the top to make it blend in and seem like it's been there for a while, but I knew better. Then again, for what it's worth, it was about as disguised as they could possibly have done it.

I'm fairly certain they heard me come in, it's not as if I could be quiet, I'm flying a biplane, but what I wasn't ready for was for them to not act. I thought for sure they would've just marched right on in, or knocked, or did something. Instead, whoever the officers were didn't do anything...at all. I had a strong feeling it was the two officers who had been tailing me for a while. Seriously, are those two the only two on the force or something? I mean, I know they aren't, but seriously, do they have anything better to do than tail me?

I wasn't going to say no to good luck though. After doing only half of my post-flight checks, I decided to bail by running out the back door, swinging around about a half mile out, and then hitting the main drag about three miles from my place. Cream's place was somewhere in Savannah Central, in some suburb somewhere. She texted me the address while I was flying over the ocean, but it's not like I had a lot of time to look it up once I landed. Still, I found it pretty easily once I slowed to a quick walk.

She opened up the door before I even raised my hand and quickly pulled me in, looking around before shutting the door. Well, if I wasn't suspicious before I will be now.

"Tails! Oh thank heavens!" she whispered, hugging me tightly. I'll admit I probably let her hang on a bit longer than necessary.

"Cream," I tried to get her attention, which only caused her to hug harder. She was slightly smaller than me, but only just. Chaos Touched usually get around the same size. "Cream, it's alright."

Finally, after what felt like a bit too long, she let go. "I know. It's just...it's been years since we even talked, and now you're on the run from the police."

"So absolutely nothing's changed."

"So absolutely nothing's changed, yes," she said, grabbing my hand to lead me to the dining room table. I could see Cheese the Chao, still lying on his stomach watching TV, although I could see his little ears perked in our direction.

"So I'll go first," Cream said, pointing to various documents and maps she had laid out. It was a massive map of Zootopia, with red 'X' marks on certain areas and large green circles over others. I could see Sahara Square had a bunch of green circles, and only a couple of X marks. The X's were all over the same place; the abandoned factory that I had hit earlier that day.

Wow this day feels like it's gone on forever.

"I've gone and searched through a bunch of public shipping documents for the E-5400's, they're marked by the green circles. Tundratown has the most, at nearly thirty of the robots, Central with the least. I think if anything that's Eggman's primary mode of attack. Take the lesser areas first, and come in from all sides to Central."

"That's exactly what he did to South and West Island. He built up in Scrap Brain and Metropolis Zone before hitting them hard."

"Exactly," Cream said, looking directly into me, "so this has precedent. There's a bunch of other documents leading to the north end, but there's nothing there."

"Nothing except the mountain, no. I wonder if that's where he's holed up. I've been searching through the districts and I've found very little. What're the X marks for?"

"The robots you've taken out," Cream explained, and I followed my paths that I had taken the last few days. Sure enough, there was one in the Rainforest District, with about five more scattered around, and a bunch more in Sahara Square.

"So now it's your turn," she turned to me with an expectant look on her face. I could hear the slight chuckling of the chao, who was still supposedly watching TV.

"Right. Meteor Tech's main update servers got hacked, which pushed in a package that identifies us, all of us, and sets it to a secondary command mode. The command mode is what lets them fire on us despite us doing nothing; otherwise they aren't even allowed to move."

"How can they fire anything though? They're checked when they're first shipped here."

"Eggman put in a secondary chamber for all of their ammunition. The usual checks can't find it, and I've been talking with the mechanics about it. They noticed a few things off, but not enough to not allow them into the city."

"Continue..." Cream said, looking down at the map again. I took a moment to organize my train of thought.

"I hacked Meteor Tech's servers, and uploaded a patch of my own. It was taken down shortly afterwards, but not before the Rainforest district's robot shot at me. By taking it down, I discovered that my patch was removed directly."

At her blank face, I continued, "Most of these robots are wireless, and should never need a direct connection. Which is good, because the one connection there is, is hidden in the data core. But there was; which means it could only be someone who both knew of the port, and knew how to remove a patch."

"And only Eggman can do both."

"Well if you know how to do the patch, you know of the port. But it was a tie between Eggman, a bunch of the mechanics, or me. And you know I didn't do it, and I just got done checking out the mechanics and they're all clean. So it's either someone that we don't know, or Eggman."

"So where's Mr. Sonic in all this? He's usually wrapped up things like this."

"Sonic got called down to Empire City by GUN. They claimed to have spotted Eggman down there."

"You don't think then...?"

"That Eggman has an infiltrator in GUN? Definitely. Probably got himself placed on the Eggman tracking commitee."

"So it's just us, then."

Ah. And here comes the inevitable. I weighed the pros and cons in my head. I didn't want her to get hurt, but I knew she'd never accept that, especially considering that she went out on her own nearly six years ago to rescue her mother from Eggman. And didn't get hurt. I put most of that on Cheese incidentally. On the other hand I could use some help. I've already demonstrated proclivity for misreading some of the maps around here, so it could be handy if I had someone watching my back. Actually...that's a plan...

When I looked up to say it, I saw her looking at me already, ready to challenge my foreseen words. "Just us, yes," I said, dropping the first of many bombshells. "Although, Cream..."

"I'm not going to stay here and do nothing while you're out there risking life and limb."

Yep. Inevitability. I think she learned that from Amy, that eventually if you try hard enough, they're going to say yes. Fortunately, Cream is a lot more...logical. Thank the gods for that one. "I know, and I'm not asking you that. I need someone here that knows the area well, and you've lived here longer than I have, and let's be fair, the streets don't make much sense around here."

"So what, I'd be your mission control or something? Kind of like what I did for Blaze?"

Wait, she did what, when?

I stared at her in confusion for a moment, but eventually just nodded my head as if I knew what she was talking about. I remember Blaze, it's impossible not to remember the headstrong cat, but I was unaware that Cream had been leading her around. No wonder she ran into Sonic and I so often...and that's not getting to the time we ran into a storm to her world...yeah. We get into weird stuff. Wait, was that the time she was kidnapped by Eggman...again...? I made a mental note to ask Sonic next time I texted him.

"Exactly like that, yeah. I have a pair of short wave radios I can make if you have the parts, that way we can update in real time. I was planning on running through Tundratown tomorrow, and knowing the placements of the bots will help things out a lot."

She stared at me for a bit, obviously deep in thought. A small 'chao' came from the creature on the floor, flying up to Cream's eyes and shaking his head. "You want me to stay here too huh? Well, two to one then..." she trailed off.

As much as it would always pain me to say it, I think deep down, Cream was scared. This was a fight that was happening in our home. A place that we had deemed safe. There was no running away from that. I wondered if this is what South Island felt like when Eggman attacked for the first time. And to be honest, every time I remembered what I was up against, every time Eggman did something to remind me that he wouldn't hesitate to kill me if he ever got the chance, I was too. But fear never froze me. Fear made me move.

* * *

>   
> From: Tails  
> To: Sonic
> 
> Sonic,
> 
> Met up with Cream earlier. Remember how you and I tag teamed one of the other islands when we met Blaze? Turns out Blaze was being led by Cream. Snow day tomorrow.

* * *

>   
> From: Sonic  
> To: Tails
> 
> Tails,
> 
> Ha, I always said you were lucky with rabbits. And yeah, you didn't know that? Could've sworn I told you. Or you knew, I mean, you were there! Mostly. By the way, you forgot to punch Knuckles for me.

* * *

>   
> From: Tails  
> To: Sonic
> 
> Is that your way of saying that you still haven't forgiven me or Cream yet for that prank we pulled on you? And if you want to punch Knuckles, you have to do it yourself. I'm not getting within ten feet of that volcano.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's chapter 11. Only six chapters left! Bit of a shorter one this time around...
> 
> Until next time!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 12. Dark stuff happens in this chapter.

Nick pulled down his sunglasses to make sure he was seeing things right. Judy was taking a nap in the driver's seat, expecting her partner to wake her up in case anything happened, although Nick had no intention of waking her up. Especially because he didn't think he'd need to. The plane was loud. He heard it nearly five minutes before he saw it, and he saw it well in advance due to it being painted red! He looked at over Judy in amazement as she lay in the seat, folded back, snoring softly. She must've been extraordinarily tired.

He knew that he should wake her up; as both a friend and an officer. And yet, the more he stared, the more he saw the tension, always there when she was awake, even as small as it was, was gone. She was relaxed for the first time, and Nick wasn't going to disturb that. The plane landed, and Miles got out, his two tails shaking themselves out. Nick stopped and just watched as the mechanic did some checks, before taking off out the back. The fox officer knew he should follow, but instead decided to just see if he'd come back.

There would always be other opportunities, and all they had right now was a hunch. Not enough to try and bring him in, especially because Nick saw the dust cloud as Miles ran away; he was going at least sixty. And besides, Fluff was still lying in the driver's seat. He'd have to wake her up if he wanted to go after the kit...what was the worst that could happen? Nick went back to staring around, occasionally working on the reports while Judy slept. He was nocturnal, and he could make up whatever lack of sleep he got with coffee. Especially on Carrots' dime.

The hours passed by quickly, and Miles made no return. Nick passed the time by checking out his phone silently, or just reading various other reports that other officer's had made. "Cruiser 247, this is Dispatch. Come in, 247," the radio blared. Nick immediately went to grab for it, almost by instinct, before realizing that Judy was still asleep. How she was still asleep after that, he'd never know. It took him a moment to realize that 247 wasn't his cruiser's number...wait, did the night crew have a different system?

"247, Wilde here," Nick answered, almost whispering. The radio seemed to follow suit.

"Just noticed you're still on duty, 247. Why are you whispering?"

"Because Fluff's asleep. Somehow."

"Tired her out that badly?" the radio took on an almost semi-mocking tone. Sometimes Nick really wished he knew how some of those dispatchers could do that. They could use the radio almost as if they were there in person.

"Well yeah, she can only take so much of the amazing officer, Nick Wilde."

"Does that mean we have to decide who won the bet?" the radio asked. Nick didn't know the night dispatchers too well. He knew it was some female panther though, he knew at least that much. Clawhauser had told him her name a few times in the brief discussions Nick's had with the cheetah, and he was mostly day-shift, and the night-shift from what he heard was anything but boring.

"What bet?"

"The bet on you with Hopps!"

"There's a bet on us?" Nick asked, his voice ever so slightly tightening. While he knew of the betting system in ZPD, he was also aware that most mammals had the good graces to not bet on relationships. Usually it was simple bets, like who could make a guy crack the fastest, or how many tickets they could write in an hour (Hopps stole both records, the second with nearly seventy five, and the first in five minutes. Nick didn't know how she managed either.)

"Course there's a bet on you two! Seriously, only one of the cutest couples in ZPD. How could you not think there was?"

"Of course, of course, my mistake. So how much is riding on us getting together?"

"Well...it's not so much getting together, as it is the first time you'll...er...get together."

Nick deadpanned, "Alright, how much is on us?"

"Can't tell you that. Just uh...just let us know, ok?"

Nick frowned, as he looked over to the still unconscious bunny. Darn. It was one of the unwritten rules that if there are bets on relationships and such, then the subjects shouldn't know their being bet on. Although maybe he could get her to talk anyways...he smirked, and pulled on all of his years of hustling. But first, he had to remember her name. Mammals always were more open once he knew their name. This night dispatcher...what was her name... this was starting to really bug him. He knew everyone in Zootopia, doesn't mean he remembered everyone. It was some cat pun, he knew that much, almost every animal in the city had some kind of pun in their name. Even he did!

"Nightclaw, right?" Nick asked. A shocked affirmative greeted him afterwards, as he did a mental cheer. 'Score one for the Wilde!'

"Wow, and here I thought you didn't know me. Just proving me wrong, one step at a time then. Alright Wilde...I'm listening."

"What do you say to just...letting a hint through? Come on, be a pal."

"Nice try Wilde. Can't do that. You know the rules as well as anyone else. But I do got a question for you..."

"Yeah?"

"How did you get Chief to sign off on those electromagnetic pulse ammunition that I know you guys have?"

Nick smirked slightly. "Alright then...I'll give you a deal. You tell me when you had your bet for, and I'll tell you how I managed to get Buffalo-Butt to get me those EMP's. Sound fair?"

He heard a small grumble from the other side, "Fine...guess you couldn't do much with that...I put in for two weeks ago." Two weeks ago...he could work with that. He filed that away for something that he could use in the future.

"Two weeks huh? Ouch, that must hurt. Hopefully you didn't put in much. Anyways, I got Clawhauser to do it. Apparently Chief actually likes him," Nick explained, shrugging. He had put in the request a few days ago, once he learned that it was going to be required gear for the beat officers in a few weeks. Why not get them early? Especially because knowing his and Judy's luck they'd have to end up actually using them.

The actual EMP's themselves weren't that powerful. Even when shooting something extremely complex, such as robots (the mechanics had made sure that they weren't shielded, specifically for the exact reason that they could get hacked. Meteor Tech had put in quite a shouting match for that.), they'd have to shoot them in an exposed area. The ammunition had to be that weak in order to not cause too much outside damage. Nick was...not a fan.

"How'd you get Clawhauser to agree to that? Ben's not that kind of a cheetah," Nightclaw said rather accusingly.

"Oh, I promised him some Gazelle concert tickets. I think I still have a few from that one time when Gazelle dropped by a few months ago."

"Gazelle...tickets? No wonder then. You know Wilde, that's kind of...wild."

"No more puns on my name please. And it has become obvious to me, that one such panther has not read our reports." Nick said, smirking as the radio went silent. Was what he did illegal? No. Was it unethical to take advantage of the cheetah's love for anything Gazelle to get something a few weeks early? Maybe. Nick wasn't particularly worried though. He'd done this kind of thing in the past, and Clawhauser was always a nice guy about it. Least of all because Nick always followed up.

The rest of the night wasn't nearly as entertaining, as Nightclaw had decided to not continue talking with Nick, and Miles hadn't returned from his trip of wherever he had gone.

Judy woke up finally at around four in the morning. She opened up her eyes slowly, before finally focusing them on the dim white screen that was her partner's phone, lighting his vulpine face in an eerie but steady light. The light shifted to her eyes, and suddenly seemed much brighter. "Feeling any better, Fluff? You got hurt pretty bad back there." She heard Nick say, despite his mouth not moving at all. The words entered into her mind, and she woke up much faster. She...hadn't gotten hurt...

* * *

"Ok Tails, remember your path?" Cream's voice rang in my ear. I don't know why she had all the parts to make a reliable short-wave high frequency radio, let alone two, but she did. Even all the small parts, like screws, and specialized parts, like the actual modulator. I honestly didn't want to ask. As it was, I was standing just outside the entrance to Tundratown, and I could almost feel the cold chill my fur. My radio was attached to my ear, and Cream could hear almost everything I could.

"Hard to forget Cream. It's just straight ahead followed by a bunch of turns," I said into my earpiece. It was clipped onto one of my ears, with a microphone that could still hear me but didn't have wind feedback. Kind of necessary, considering my usual travel speeds.

"If that's your definition of path, no wonder you got lost."

Ouch, bunnies are harsh. "And exactly where did you learn that kind of language, Miss Rabbit?" I asked sarcastically. Cream was, years ago, the perfect polite daughter. And then she turned twelve, and the teenage years started dawning on her. Most people, animals included, go through a rebellion stage in their teens. Cream...was probably in the early parts of hers.

"You and Mr. Sonic, actually."

Yep. Definitely in the early parts of hers. Somehow though, she never once broke her habit of calling Sonic 'Mr. Sonic'. Same with 'Mr. Knuckles'. "Right. Somehow I keep forgetting that," I retorted, trying to keep a mental note that said 'keep Cream away from Sonic and myself at all times. Vanilla warning.'

I jumped around a little bit, trying to keep warm as I felt the chill. A tune popped in my head, close to the Holoska theme that ran through Sonic's during the Dark Gaia incident. "Tails?" I heard Cream ask. I ignored her, and focused. Time to play.

"Time to fly!" I shouted, boosting out into the cold. The tunnel between districts was a good hundred feet or so, which was over near instantly for me, and I found myself in the winter wonderland.

Snow drifts piled on each side, nothing more than a small blur as I passed by. Houses and shops were on each side, each as dark as night. Mostly because it was still night. My eyes were fully open, enjoying the sense of speed as I ran through the white landscape. "Left turn ahead!" Cream's voice brought me back. "Right," I whispered, before sliding on the ground, my feet and tails working simultaneously to slowly alter my direction. On normal ground, it would probably hurt, a lot. On ice, however...

I kept my momentum, a good two hundred, as I gracefully passed the turn with ease. A snow drift lay in front of me, and I could already feel the Chaos Energy gather around me. Rings had started appearing, only a few at the beginning, but more as I went on.

I practically flew on top of the drift, jumping at the last second to get the most height. A five foot snow drift for thirty feet jump. Not too bad. "Haha, yeah!" I called out, my excitement reaching a fever pitch. Did I mention that I loved running and flying? Because I'm no Sonic, but sometimes I love running through Tundratown. Or just running in general, really.

"Tails, be safe, please!" I ignored her, again. Probably shouldn't, but considering that she's seen both Sonic and myself when we get this way, and get a good run going, we can't really stop it. Hell, she's been this way herself in the past. I continued going straight for a little bit, jumping off the snow drifts here and there. "Tails, right!"

"Right..." I said, preparing for another drift turn. Unfortunately this turned out to be impossible, as there was a car on the road. At four in the morning. In Tundratown. What the hell.

I had to swerve to miss the van, loaded with decals as it was. I cut my boost, only to suddenly have another idea. I planted my feet on the ground, turning to the way I wanted to go. As soon as I had cleared the van, I boost again, letting my tails take me off the ground, and doing a slight jump to realign my body. I needed horizontal, not vertical. Fortunately I wasn't going fast enough to shatter windows, because most windows shatter when people run on them going a hundred miles an hour. I only had to wall run for a small time, before going back to the more solid ground beneath me. "Right, when's the next turn?"

"You've got half a mile, then it's a T-intersection. You'll want left!" Half a mile she says, that's barely twenty seconds! I prepared the turn early, and remembered my own map as I saw a snow drift on the far side. "I'm just going over!" I said, and sped up to hit the drift going three hundred.

I soared. I flew over the other building, no idea what it was, it was barely twenty feet tall, not nearly enough to stop a flying fox going faster than most people could blink. "Tails, which direction did you go!?"

"Straight on through!"

I could hear her sigh as she struggled to keep up. She had Cheese to help her too, which is good because I have a feeling she'd lose track of me if she didn't. "Tails, watch out, bot ahead!"

"I see it!" I said, keeping up my speed. Sure enough, there was one of the security robots on the sidewalk, patrolling. I don't know if it managed to scan me or not, but when something my size hits it going as fast as I was, it goes down. "Gone now!"

"Tails, at least try to keep to keep the collateral damage to a minimum! We don't need you getting in more trouble than you're already in!"

"Relax, it was probably going to shoot at me. Its eye turned red."

"And you saw that? By the way, you'll need to take a left turn here followed by a right in about three blocks."

"Well...no...but I haven't been able to re-patch things yet. I've been kind of busy," I said as I turned to the left. I had slowed down significantly since hitting the bot, going a mere sixty, which on ice is still kinda dangerous. I counted the seconds and attempted to turn right on time, but I think I missed it by a block.

"What street am I supposed to be on?" I asked, looking for the street signs. If there was one thing I have to be thankful to Zootopia for, it was their street signs, which were actually pretty handy, especially if your name is Sonic. Or even if it wasn't, anyone could easily tell where they were, assuming they actually looked at the signs. Of course, it's that last part that some people have trouble with.

"Igloo Avenue, you think you missed it?" Did I think I missed it? Of course I missed it, I'm going nearly seventy in streets designed for twenty or thirty. I only have a few seconds to react, and it's not like I can turn on a dime...at least here.

"Yeah, I'm on Icicle."

"Stay there then, you're going to have to make a right in about five blocks. Oh, wait, there should be another bot soon-ish!"

Soon-ish she says. Soon-ish. "Next time I think you might want to skip the directions to tell me where the bot is. I already broke it by the time you told me." It was true too. The robots arms had been sheared off, and this one I checked first; it was going to fire at me. See? I can learn.

"Yes, well, next time feel free to get lost."

"...Really, Cream?" I was almost saddened by her lack of comeback. Trading quips with Cream isn't nearly as fun as it is with Sonic, if only because Sonic's mind can occasionally work as fast as his legs. Sometimes.

"I'm so sorry. I couldn't think of anything..."

I tried to soothe her nerves (she wasn't even the one running this maze!) as I followed her directions, finally ending up at the original signal location of the IP that I tracked so many days ago. Like many of the buildings around here, it was a light concrete, designed to keep heat in and the cold out. It had ice and snow on the roof, creating small icicles that dripped down from the overhangs. This one didn't look like a factory, like the one at Sahara Square, or even like a bundle of leaves like the Rainforest district. This one looked...like a house.

A normal, albeit anything with a purple and gold color scheme that could be called 'normal', house. It even had a little chimney. I walked up slowly, keeping my eyes and ears out for any trouble. "Tails, did you find it?"

"Pretty sure. 8126 Freestyle drive, right?"

"That's the place."

"It's a...house. Doesn't look like anyone's home though. I'm gonna go snoop around for a bit, see if there's anyone awake before I knock. What's my time?"

"You're 4:25. I'll give you five minutes of silence," Cream said to me. I nodded, despite knowing that she couldn't see me, and flew up to the angled rooftop. Instead of landing, I flew around it, trying to make as little noise as possible, as I searched for any reflections on the snow that a light or something might make. As I went through more and more angles, all I saw was darkness. The entire place had no lights on, which makes sense for four in the morning. But what doesn't, however, is none of the small lights.

Every house these days has small lights. Things like a coffee maker, an oven, a microwave, small little LED's that shine and make the rooms much brighter than they actually should be. This house had none of those. It was like the entire place was completely off the grid!

My five minutes was over faster than I thought it'd be. "Five minutes are up. Find anything?"

"Not a thing. Break in or knock?"

"At least knock first. Oh Cheese...what is it with boys and breaking things?"

I knocked loudly and solidly, letting the earpiece and the rabbit on the other side know that I heard her loud and clear. She giggled softly as now her part of the 'mission' was over. I put my ears against the door to see if I heard anything. I waited for a few moments. Now, I have pretty good hearing, so when I say I heard nothing, I heard nothing.

I knocked loudly again on the door, filling the house with sound again. Again there was no answer. I tried the door, expecting to find it locked only to see that the handle dropped easily. "It's...unlocked..." I said quietly for Cream's benefit, tiptoeing into the inside. The house was a small one, with a large room combined in the kitchen off to the left, and a hallway and the rest of the house to the right. I took a deep breath, only to cough immediately. I knew that smell. And it wasn't a good one.

I located its source instantly, and threw on the light into the big room on the left. Sure enough, exactly as I had smelled; a large rodent, a capybara, was dead. He had to have either been shot or knifed by the amount of blood I saw. I rushed over, checking the body, its grey shirt closer to black now. I could tell now that he'd been shot, by the same type of bullets as the E-5400's based on the type of ammo lying around the floor. The body was cold, extremely cold. Even in Tundratown, bodies can take hours to lose most of their heat. This one, from what I could tell, had been 'taken care of' much longer than a few hours.

On the side of the room, engraved into the wall with almost mechanical precision, lay a message, "Careful, Foxboy," I read aloud. I faintly heard a 'wait, what?' coming from Cream. "Cream, call the police, there's been a homicide," I said to the rabbit, rushing through the rest of the house. It was dead silent and empty, except for a single room.

In it lay a large map, with an X, definitely not in Eggman's writing, underneath the mountain that lay to Zootopia's north. I pulled out my scanner and took a quick picture, and downloaded all of the wireless router's data. It would take some time, but if I didn't have a lead before I did now.

"Police are on their way. Tails, get out of there," I heard her pleading voice. I nodded mutely, before looking again at the collapsed rodent.

"I'm...I'm sorry," I said quietly, before darting out the door. Already I could hear the sirens of Tundratown's police precinct, and I knew I didn't have much time. I ran out of the way, picking up speed as I went, as I just ran, and ran. I didn't care for directions, or where I was. I just ran. I've encountered death before, in the past. It's no stranger to me. But it is rare, and never as...brutal...as it was here. But if Eggman thought that would cow me, he had another thing coming. And as my feet took me to where I was heading, the mountainous area to the north, I knew what was about to happen.

"Cream, I'm heading underneath the mountain at the Tundratown entrance. Stay safe, stay secure. I'm going to scout around a bit...I think we're in the endgame."

I didn't need to hear the sigh that came from her to know that it did.

* * *

  


> To: Sonic  
> From: Tails
> 
> Eggman's here, this time for sure. Get up here ASAP.

* * *

  


> To: Tails  
> From: Sonic
> 
> On my way. Stay safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's 12. This chapter was surprisingly hard to edit, and had to go through a couple of drafts. Still not entirely happy with it, but it'll do.
> 
> Until Next Time!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 13. Dark turns ahead.

"What's going on?" Judy asked lightly, her voice still full of sleep. She had woken up not long ago, and had been debating going back to sleep when Nick's phone, the phone he was looking at to Judy's goodwill, had suddenly started ringing.

"Wilde," he had answered, his face not quite filled with indecision but definitely having a sense of worry in it. "Hmm-mm. Wait, really? Where? Yeah we'll take a look. Later Finnick," he had said as he hung up. He turned to look at the grey rabbit, his green eyes filled with worry.

"Finnick. His van almost got ran over. Literally, ran over," Nick said, reaching for the radio. Judy put her paw to stop him, her sleep-addled mind still not quite adding everything up.

"How can you almost run over a van?" she asked, her amethyst eyes clouded with inquisitiveness and wonder. Nick looked at her skeptically for a second, even as her brain kicked back into gear. "Oh wow. Ok, radio it in, where was he?" Judy suddenly said, turning over the car. There was only one person in Zootopia who they knew of that could, almost literally, run over a van. Miles Prower.

"At the end of Igloo Lane. Dispatch, this is cruiser 247, received anonymous tip-off about potential location of target, over," Nick said, hoping that the previous conversation with Nightclaw wouldn't prevent her from doing her job, and felt a grin as she responded.

"247, this is Dispatch. You going for it, despite anonymous...wait, how did you get an anonymous tip-off but we didn't?" Nightclaw crackled. Judy didn't even need to look over at her partner to see the half-lidded eyes and the smirk.

"Reasons, Nightclaw. We're heading out. Keep our seats in the bullpen warm for us!" Nick said, hanging up the radio.

"You know, I'm surprised she answered at all," Judy said, keeping her eyes on the road and off the vulpine next to her, but she didn't need to see him. "You know, considering that conversation with her earlier. She's going to tell the Chief that's how you got them early, you know that right?"

"I know better than to question how you know things," Nick said, his ears folding back. Judy smirked, and just kept focusing on getting her way through the Rainforest District at night. It wasn't too different than by day, if not a bit easier. The sprinklers that were dotted around the district didn't water the roads at night.

The transitions between the districts was always one of the few things that surprised mammals that first came into Zootopia. From the Rainforest District especially to the colder areas like Tundratown, the water tended to freeze quickly. The tunnels leading into the winter wonderland were at a slight angle, hardly noticeable until there's natural rain, away from the arctic environment. The roads were built that way on purpose, to lead the natural rain flow away from becoming icy and making the already somewhat treacherous landscape even more so.

They located Finnick's van quickly, as it was one of the only vehicles on the road, and rushed out to ensure that Nick's friend was fine. They found him in the driver's seat, a steaming cup of something that may or may not have been coffee or alcohol, seemingly fine but listening to the most obnoxious music they had heard. "Finnick! What happened?" Nick asked, knocking on the side of the car. The fennec fox looked over, and rolled the window down, the music blaring out into the silent snow-filled streets. He reached down, and slowly, almost painfully slowly, turned it down.

"So I know about that Miles kid you two have been looking for," Finnick started. He reached a paw up, silencing Nick from whatever he was about to say as he continued, "Don't ask me how. Anyways, I stopped here for the night to let the worst of the cold break over before I grab something, and this yellowish-orange blur breaks from around me, runs onto a snow ledge, then runs alongside the windows of that shop there." Finnick pointed to everything as he explained.

"That definitely sounds like Miles, but what was he doing here?" Judy asked, walking around quickly to try and stay warm. Nick shrugged, and inspected the snow ledge, hoping to find some kind of footprints or anything that would show where he went. Instead they found a straight line rather than prints, a line that disappeared as soon as the ledge was left in the dust. "Maybe we can try and see if the line continued?" Judy asked when Nick pointed it out. He had already gone ahead to try to see if it continued.

He shook his head, "Can't. Too much ice and not enough snow. Finnick, did you see which way he went?" They were interrupted from hearing the fox's answer when Judy's phone started ringing. Curious, she excused herself and left the friends to continue talking.

"This is Judy," she answered. The phone number was an unknown, with even the number itself being hidden from her. The amount of numbers that hid themselves from her phone were fairly low, with only Nick's and a few others. And even then, the numbers showed themselves once she put them in as contacts. So this was a phone number that wasn't in her contact list, that was hidden from her. All of them spelled dangerous.

"Hopps? Bogo. I know you're still on the case from yesterday, but there's been a change. There was a murder in Tundratown. Do you know where Miles Prower is this instant?" Bogo asked.

"Sorry Chief, we know he's in Tundratown but not sure where."

"Precinct Four has the murder under control. However, there was a message for Miles at the location. Crime scene investigators think that whoever did it was after him, and went to a storage facility that the city uses underneath Snowpeak. Check out the area immediately but be aware, Hopps, they are armed and dangerous," Bogo continued.

"Yes sir, right away. Anything else?" Judy asked, quickly signaling Nick to go back to the cruiser. They had left it running, mostly for heater purposes, but also for this exact type of situation.

"Dismissed Hopps. Keep Clawhauser and Nightclaw informed of all major leads, otherwise radio silence." Judy looked down at her phone when she heard the beep of the Chief hanging up. She looked back at the cruiser to see that it was steadily working its way towards her, Nick driving just down the street.

"Care for a ride, Carrots?" Nick asked, rolling the window down only a little bit. Even from where she was a few feet away, she could feel the warm air try to escape. She gripped open the door and hopped in, sliding right past Nick's face as she flew through the air from the driver's side door.

"Thanks for the ride, Slick," she smirked back, buckling up. She knew the dangers of letting Nick drive, which was why she let him do it all too infrequently for the fox's liking. It wasn't that he was a bad driver, he was a decent one. But he dared. The first time she had let him drive, without knowing about his hobbies, he had; run three yellow lights extremely close to red, weaved through traffic with barely enough room to move over, followed a truck with less than a foot to the bumper, and drifted into a parallel parking spot. Twice. In the first hour alone.

"Slick? That's the best you could come up with?" Nick asked, looking at his partner incredulously. Judy felt her ears and face heat up, and started to talk only to interrupted by the vulpine, "so where we going?"

"Snowpeak. There's a-"

"Storage facility underneath it, yeah. This isn't a bust is it?"

"A bust? No, there was-"

"Only dangerous people use that place, Fluff," Nick said, not moving his eyes from straight ahead. Judy looked at him oddly, only to see him waver and go out of focus, only to eventually focus back in. "Are...are you ok?" he asked, staring at her now suddenly, instead of looking straight ahead. He held out a paw, as if he had been running it in front of her face.

"I...I think so. What's the last thing you said?"

"Losing your memory is an early sign of old age, you know that Carrots?"

"Just answer the damned question." Judy was in no need for any of Nick's intricacies after the strangeness of what just happened. She wondered if that's what happened to Nick; if that was a 'Chaos Effect'. She shuddered. It hadn't been the first time she had seen things like that, but each time was getting weirder and weirder.

"I asked where we're going, you said Snowpeak. Then you just kinda zoned out there for a bit. You sure you feeling up to this?" The sounds the vehicle made had switched from the 'rubber on ice' to the 'rubber on pavement'. She must've been 'zoned out' for a lot longer than it should have been.

Judy nodded her head. "You been there before?" she asked lightly, just trying to for some basic conversation.

"No. Finnick has though; one of the many stops the Flea Market has. I'd be careful of the inner areas though, Finnick's told me only dangerous people use that place, Fluff."

That line again. Judy shook her head to clear her mind before they got to the ever looming and getting increasingly larger mountain.

The outskirts of Tundratown were different, compared to the outskirts of most other districts. Some, like Sahara Square, didn't particularly have any noticeable ones, although it did have Outback Island, way off in the distance. Most of the others were flat, or were water-based, such as downtown and Savannah Central.

Then there was Tundratown, with its single large mountain range that encompassed and made a valley of the Rainforest district and itself. The entire chain was called the Leopard's Paw Range, and most of the mountains didn't have any particular name to it. Snowpeak, the tallest and closest mountain, however, did. "I've never been there before. Know anything else about it besides the Flea Market?" The Flea Market was Nick's way of saying 'a Black Market stop'. Apparently it was common enough terminology in the more seedy parts of Zootopia.

"Not really. Rumors say it started as a mining operation that was then abandoned. Others say the mountains always been hollow, waiting for innocent mammals to just come by and collapse on."

"Methinks you've been watching too many scary movies."

"You can't watch too many horror movies, Carrots. It's impossible."

Discussion now completely unraveled due to Nick's fanciful storytelling, they continued to talk as they headed towards the white mountain. By the time they arrived, Judy felt much more at ease, and just chalked what happened into the mental folder, 'Think about later'.

The outside of the caverns seemed fairly standard. A chain link fence made a giant square around the lighted entrance, propped up by metal panels but still open to the environment. The fence didn't stop either Nick or Judy, just climbing or jumping over it after leaving the car. It wasn't the first time they had done seemingly illegal paths like that. Besides, they had been asked officially this time. Nick made sure to grab the EMP ammunition. He offered a pawful to Judy, who nodded her head and took a few. Just in case.

They looked around, but they neither heard nor saw a single soul nearby. The entire place did look abandoned at least, even if it was relatively well-kept. "Dispatch, this is Hopps. We've made it to Snowpeak, about to enter," Judy radioed in, keeping her eyes and ears peeled for anything that wasn't Nick. Even a fly would be welcome. But there was nary anything around.

"Copy, Hopps," Nightclaw's voice rang back.

Nick pointed down the only entrance they could see, "I think the only place left is down. Not much here otherwise." Judy agreed; the entire paved lot was empty. Not even a sign of an old collapsed building or anything. Just a pure paved lot and then a cave mouth, held open by cold steel beams that spidered it's way around the entrance.

The inside of the cave wasn't much different than the outside. It was a small slope heading downwards, but mostly smooth. Paved too, although the feel had changed from the Zootopian standard to Human standard. The walls were carved rock; obviously not natural, although there were a few stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Two long strips of lights on each side helped denote where the walls were and kept it well-lit, although somehow still casting ominous shadows all around.

Judy wasn't sure how long they had been walking down. They had seen a few paths off to the side, but they hadn't gone very far before it would have turned into a massive maze. They decided to skip those and keep heading downwards. Faintly, she thought she heard something and stopped, signaling for Nick to do so as well. He too had his ears forward, she noticed. Maybe she didn't just hear nothing this time. She looked at him for a moment, asking the unasked question, and he slowly nodded. They weren't sure of what it is exactly that they heard, a kind of a rumble at most.

They quickly ran towards the next outcropping, the fifth or sixth one they had encountered, that went off the main path. The sound, and it was definitely a rumble, was getting closer. This time they also heard a softer sound; the sound of running.

They looked out, Nick's head peeking out through Judy's ears as Miles grabbed them both by the arms, giving them not even a second to see him, before he lifted them out of sight into the darkness of the caves.

* * *

Bad idea, bad idea. Definitely a bad idea.

Next time I have that little niggling voice in the back of my head that says "Hey, Tails, you shouldn't do this without Sonic or Knuckles," or at least more backup than a voice in my head, I should probably listen to it.

Ok, I should back up. Ten years ago, I - ok, not that far. So after finding out what happened to the capybara, I decided to head under the mountain. There was a fence, but a simple jump took care of that particular obstacle. There wasn't much security, nor did it look like there were any buildings or anything. It was actually kind of creepy how empty it was. Not even any bots or anything. Although, then again, that kind of thing is normal for Eggman. There was nothing at the entrance of Metropolis zone...

So I dove down. I checked each path as I went, even the offshoots. One of the best things about being able to run so quickly. Sure, there were a few near misses - although I wasn't really worried, I had plenty of rings and this place had tons - but it wasn't until I hit the end of a couple of paths that I figured out what I saw.

Remember the E-2000's, from Metal Sonic's Overlord fleet, way long ago? Those shiny gold robots that fired a massive laser and took a couple of hits before they went down? I found those. Six of them. Per end to each offshoot. Activated. Yes, I ran. I'm not going to lie, I think even Sonic would've had trouble with all of them at once. Unless he had us by his side, then it'd be too easy. But he wasn't here, and I was alone, so yeah, I ran. I did take out a few though.

There were almost twenty different ends to each offshoot, as this was a massive mining operation. Over a hundred robots per pathway. And then I said screw it and went straight down to the bottom. I wasn't sure if the bots were chasing me or not, and to be honest I didn't particularly care. I had rings, and Cream on the surface knew where I was. I was probably safer in this operation than I had been at the other ones!

Of course, at the bottom sat my most hated...I want to say human, but I'm not sure even they consider him human anymore. Eggman didn't even bother looking up from the inside of his Egg-O-Matic, or whatever that contraption he sits in all day is called. Also he made another giant piloted scorpion robot. Except this one had not one massive tail laser, but three, each one almost as tall as the cave I was in. Each of its eight legs had the same kind of lens, but to be honest, I was more trying to keep track of the three massive ones.

I'm going to call it Cerbertail. Or Scorpi-bot. I want one Sonic, can I have one, please? I promise I'll take care of it. I'll even name it something sane!

He fired all three lasers at me at once. I barely had enough time to look around before I had to dodge. Then I had to hear his annoying voice, "Oh ho! If it isn't my old neme-...Tails?" I saw him actually look up now. I almost wished I had enough time to take a photo. Eggman's face was priceless. He had honestly been expecting Sonic.

"Sorry Eggman, Sonic had something better to do, so he sent me here to deal with you." It wasn't exactly a lie, and besides, I like taunting Eggman. He taunts us enough.

"Did he now? Well I'll give him your regards after I hand him your dead body!" Eggman yelled, siccing the pincers onto me. I quickly flew up, and grabbed onto the sides as they went forward and backwards. Eggman's...vehicle...thing...was sitting on the top, and if I timed it right I could...

"Ooh threats. That's new. Can't think of anything better?" I asked, as I spindashed Eggman's canopy. I didn't hear the glass break, which was normal as I don't think we'd ever cracked it. Although I think we came close a couple of times. I used the extra momentum to spindash into the metal tails, knocking aside one of them as it smashed into the wall with a loud metallic boom. It had dented just a bit, but gave me an idea.

"Hurgh! I don't believe this!" I heard him yell, as suddenly the whole machine just moved. I quickly had to turn and run back up the way I came in as the Cerbertail moved just as quickly as I could to avoid being crushed. Occasionally the tail lasers would fire, even if as cramped quarters as the main tunnel. Which led to now. I heard him say, "All E-2000's, report to main tunnel, and get that fox!" Specifically, it was a bad idea to come down here alone because I'm pretty sure that even in the Cyclone it would be a bad idea to face over a hundred of those armored robots!

I noticed once I passed one branch that the extra paths were far too small for Cerbertail, or Egg Scorpion, or whatever its actual name was, so I could try to make my escape through one of those. I hadn't checked them all though, but I have no doubt that most of them had robots at the end. And then I saw something far ahead that made my blood freeze.

Two faces. A grey rabbit and a red fox's, neither Chaos-touched, looking down towards me, and the giant metal thing on my tails. I sighed internally. Well, there goes my plan of 'guess which pathway has the least robots'. I don't need to guess anymore, I just have to pray. I grabbed them both by their arms, taking care to slow down enough so they wouldn't get hurt, as once again massive laser beams filled where we were. Good thing Eggman can't aim. Still.

* * *

>   
>  From: Tails  
>  To: Sonic
> 
> Sonic,
> 
> Found him. He's just as usual as ever. By the way, I think he's gotten more violent lately. He had a scorpion-like machine with laser tails. Can I have one?

* * *

>   
>  From: Sonic  
>  To: Tails
> 
> Tails,
> 
> No. I'm on my way, should be there in another twelve hours or so. Stay safe, and give him a few wallops for me!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's chapter 13. I don't think I did nearly as good a job with the description of the cave as I wanted to. Oh well, that's why I write. To get better.
> 
> Until Next Time!


	14. Chapter 14

"M-Miles!?" Judy stuttered out as she felt her feet leave the harsh floor. The two-tailed fox, and it was obvious now that he had two tails, each one as big as Nick's, turned to grin at his two unruly passengers, before continuing to look straight ahead.

Pathways and passageways they went, Judy's mind barely able to keep up as Miles ducked, dodged, weaved and wove throughout the mine. She had at first attempted to keep an open mind and try to remember the way out, but as went deeper and deeper it just seemed impossible. Each cave looked like the last, and each possible landmark that she could try to remember went by too fast for it to stay in her mind before the next one. Was this really how Miles saw the world? Rushing by at a speed that most others could only hope to achieve?

"You're under arrest, Miles Prower!" Judy yelled, trying to get the orange fox's attention. Miles didn't bother looking at her, focused as he was on navigation the unnatural mazes in front of him. He turned his head though, as if thinking about what to say, before making another sharp left turn and staying silent.

"Not the best time Carrots!" Nick shouted, as he tried to put his own feet to the floor to at least keep upright. Miles never let him though, going as fast as he was. Nick wasn't sure exactly how fast, but it had to be at least fifty or sixty miles per hour. It obviously wasn't as fast as he could go, Nick had seen at least that much, but even at this 'slow' speed the breath was being ripped from his lungs.

"Pull over at once!" Judy continued, heedless to Nick's claims. That one got a response from the fast vulpine.

"What do you think I am, some sort of vehicle? And sure, I'll let you off; you do know Eggman was right behind us? With about two hundred plus E-2000's? I'm good Hopps, but I'm not Sonic!" he yelled back, taking another quick right. His ears flicked back, as if they had heard something from behind him, and he sped up a bit. Nick tried to do the same, and found a similar sound. He was surprised that Miles could hear that; he had to focus entirely to barely hear the buzzing. Miles was acting like he heard it loud and clear.

"I didn't see anything, Nick did you?"

"Now you know why I'm not really fighting him!" Nick yelled back. "We need to slow down Miles, you're going to hit a wall!"

"Probably! But that's what...oh right you don't have rings. Well hold on tight, I'll try to lose 'em!" Miles shouted, his legs and tails kicking into gear. He spread out his arms to ensure that his tails wouldn't eviscerate the two officers that he was holding on to- that wouldn't count as assault would it?- and waited for a straightaway. "Hold on tight and take a deep breath!"

Nick immediately tried to follow his instructions, and tried to motion Judy to do so as well, who just looked in confusion. Barely she could hear the sound of jets from behind her, and she knew that they had spoken the truth. Although then, why didn't she see them? Or see Eggman for that matter? The caves were still fairly well lit, for caves at least, but they couldn't be that far behind?

A straightaway appeared, and Miles felt a gleam enter his eyes. "Go!" he yelled, accelerating massively to enter near the speed of sound. The passageway wasn't too long, maybe a few hundred feet, which would go over in less than a blink of an eye, but as he turned left around the corner he spotted the firing of a laser. He tried to position his body so neither of his passengers would get hit; he could take it, they couldn't. He realized quickly that he had overcompensated, and that he had just put Hopps right in the pathway of the light. He pushed off, trying to jump it to make up for his mistake.

Judy shrieked as she felt the tips of her feet burn from a laser impact. And not just a laser impact, a massive laser, easily the size of the pathway itself. It was either a miracle or Miles was a lot better than he gave himself credit for that she wasn't killed immediately. The breath got torn out from her lungs, and now she knew why Miles had told them to take a deep breath and hold it. Silently she cursed herself, knowing that whatever she did now it would just make things worse.

A few seconds later she felt herself be placed on the ground, Nick right next to her, as Miles knelt to them and tried to do what first aid he could. Streaks of red flowed down the parts that didn't get hit, and already she felt her brain starting to go into sleep mode. Or unconsciousness, it was kind of hard to tell. The dizziness would have told her, except she wasn't getting dizzy so to speak. It just felt like there wasn't much pressure anymore.

"Right, not bad for your first post-mach trip. Just breathe, don't take deep breaths, just breathe. Hyperventilate if you feel you have to. Wilde, you didn't get hit did you?" the two-tailed fox said, as he reached into the bunny's belt to get some bandages.

"No...no I'm fine," Nick's voice was anything but fine, but Judy could barely even tell. Her feet were killing her, and she had a massive headache that felt more like a hangover than she would've cared to admit.

"Right, same thing. Breathe. They shouldn't be able to catch up to us for another few minutes, if you two are safe to move. Otherwise, then we'll have to stealth it. Ooh...ouch. Sorry Hopps, pretty sure it just grazed you but lasers always hurt like the dickens," Miles said, realizing that there weren't anything like bandages on Judy's belt. Instead, he took off his shirt.

The shirt was dirtied and muddied, but as he ripped off the sleeves, Nick and Judy finally got a good look at their 'savior'. Whereas he seems scrawny, wearing loose shirts as he does, he was fairly fit, but that wasn't what shocked them. What did shock them was that he didn't seem to be hurt. At all. There was a large patch of chest fur, which didn't even have a single hair out of place.

"Right, I'm guessing that you two have your equipment out in your-" Miles said, cutting himself off as his ears suddenly flicked back. Nick's did too, and Judy heard the stomping around that something only mechanical could ever make. Miles made the 'shush' motion, and continued to tighten the makeshift bandage on Judy's feet. Nick followed suit as he tore a part of his own uniform off near silently and tied it around each of her knees.

A large robot, not an E-5400 as they were so used to seeing, but a larger and slimmer golden model stepped by. It scanned down their hallway for a moment, before turning and continuing on its way. This one seemed more humanoid, but had large jets on its back. Guns for arms, as well as a panel on its chest that obviously slid out of the way. It clanged down the hallway, and only seeing Miles continue his 'shush' motion stopped them from saying anything. Eventually he stopped, and continued to focus.

Nick waited for a few moments before asking, "What the hell was that?"

"That," Miles started, "was an E-2000. War machines. He has hundreds of them down here. They're ancient, for his standards, but they were made by Metal Sonic for his invasion a few years ago. Guess he wanted something he could deny. Does that feel any better, Hopps? You were bleeding pretty badly. He must've been using disintegration lasers. Luckily it didn't hit you for long," he finished.

Judy's eyes were unfocused, but she had enough mental cognition to understand when and what she was being addressed with. She wiggled her toes a bit; still kind of stung, but at least now it wouldn't bleed out more. "Much..." she said quietly, leaning into Nick a bit and closing her eyes. Miles looked worried for a moment before seeing that Nick didn't seem too upset. He was actually trying out the radio, trying to contact the outside.

"Dispatch, come in Dispatch, this is officer Wilde. Clawhauser? Nightclaw? You two read me?" Nick tried the radio, only to get silence. Miles shook his head.

"Sorry, there's about five hundred feet of rock between you and the outside. I doubt there's anything besides a Chaos charge that could make that distance."

Nick nodded. "Well, it seems we're here for a while...huh. She's asleep. Would you look at that," he said, looking down at the grey bunny leaning on his arm. It was exactly as he said, the bunny was fast asleep, her breathing equal and silent.

"Probably a good thing. I don't have any tools to deal with shock. So, question time while we have it. What're you two doing here?" Miles asked.

Nick sighed a bit, formulating what he was going to say, "There was a murder in Tundratown a few days ago. Bogo thinks you might be in danger, and one of my friends saw you head this way. What were you doing here?"

Miles took a deep breath as he remembered the capybara's place he had found earlier. "I tracked Eggman to the mountain, and the Tundratown entrance was the closest I had at the time."

"Do you know what he's planning?"

"Don't you? If you don't you probably will soon."

"Humor me."

"He's West Islanding Zootopia."

"I said humor me, not make it worse," Nick said, smiling slyly, although on the inside he was much more worried than he was showing. West Island had fallen within a few days, and was taken back in just as many. There were fewer robots here, although stronger ones.

"Oops. Must've missed that part," Miles said, sitting down on the ground on Nick's side, opposite the sleeping gray bunny. "Eggman's not going to be able to leave for a while. You can take a rest if you need to."

"Why's that?"

"Lasers missed me, and they hit the ceiling of the cave. Caused a small cave-in. He built the Cerbertail down here, I can tell that much, which means he was planning on only having one exit...unless he smartened up. He's arrogant, so I doubt it. We'll have a few hours before he can get out."

Nick nodded, and didn't bother saying anything about Miles' invitation to nap. Either he or Judy had to be awake and keep an eye on the vulpine at all times, although now that he had the opportunity...

"Mind if I ask you a few things?" Nick asked, trying to remain nonchalant. He knew the terms now, and maybe, just maybe, he could get to the bottom of this. The bottom of everything.

"Sure. That's what question time is for. Can't guarantee I'll answer."

'No, but I can,' Nick thought as he nodded. He would agree on the outside, but he, and he was pretty sure Miles knew as well, that simply by asking the right questions the right way can get a lot more information out.

"What is the 'Chaos Theory'?"

Miles sighed, relaxing his head onto the wall, staring up. He paused a few moments, and before Nick was going to ask it again a different way he spoke up, "The Chaos Theory is the study of the Chaos Emeralds, and the Chaos Effects they have upon those who have been affected by them. It's also the study of Chaos in general, and how that energy affects life, the universe, and everything in it. It's kind of like Quantum Theory, only more...chaotic." Miles finished.

"Do all Chaos Effects turn mammals into...?"

"Into us? The Chaos-Touched? Not that I've found. Been talking with Cream have you? She was an...interesting case. Three Effects, two on her and the chao, Cheese, and then another on her mother. There are plenty of other mammals, and Humans, that have had another Effect entirely."

"So what are they? What are these 'Chaos Effects'?" Nick was dancing internally with glee. Miles finally seemed to be opening up to them, or at least him. Maybe now he can get some real answers instead of the half-baked variety that he had been getting.

"Chaos Effects are...well, they're effects. Anything that happens when a Chaos Emerald is held by a person's bare hand...or a paw, I guess."

"How does that..."

"How does it work? The Emeralds can tell when they're being held a certain way. They are sentient, but all attempts to contact the intelligence's within, no matter how basic, has resulted in failure. The exception is the Master Emerald. But the Emeralds...fluctuate, I guess, when they're held. This flux generates an enormous amount of energy. The energy goes through the easiest conductor, like electricity. Which just so happens to be the body of whoever was holding it. That much energy...isn't good for anyone. But it's Chaos, so no two Effects are the same.

"Some transform, like Cream's. Other's...effectively rewrite the world, like mine or Sonic's. Sonic's was a lot bigger though, and thanks to the Time Eater we've been able to go back and grab measurements of how big the fluctuations are. The Chaos Theory says that the larger the fluxes are, the bigger the Effect. Some are minor, some aren't. But it's Chaos, so it doesn't always abide by those rules, if it even has any," Miles explained.

Nick was silent for a few moments. It was a massive datadump, but it explained a lot about the world that had been happening. "What was your Effect?"

"Mine? Uh...well, my Effect is how I got to West Island. I originally lived on Cocoa Island, did you know that? Small island, way out in the middle of the ocean. Nice enough place, though I don't remember much. I grabbed one of the Emeralds when my lab exploded, again, and then...events."

"Events? Be more vague, please."

"Har har. Six of the Emeralds, I had found all seven on the island, disappeared immediately, but a ship started sinking off the coast of the island, and so I tried to rescue them without thinking of the Emeralds. Anyways, I did, but a few of them had cell phones that they could place a call into. Emergency services found us, and since I was...five, maybe?...I got picked up too. We all went into a plane, which went down near West Island after a freak thunderstorm." Miles shuddered a bit.

"Chaos Effects can do all that?"

"They can do anything. Transformation...the strongest event we've ever recorded was the first and second. Although energy's been building for another big one for a while now."

Nick nodded, his mind whirring with possibilities. "What were the first and second?"

"The first was the largest. And we think it was the creation of the Chaos Emeralds themselves. The second...rewrote the world. That was Sonic's."

"Wait, how does that work? The Emeralds didn't exist to flux, then how could they have created an Effect?"

"It's called a 'Chaos' Effect, remember. Chaos is power, power enriched by the heart. All it takes is sufficient life, tragedy, etc, and a Chaos Effect can occur. It doesn't need to have the Emeralds. Unfortunately that was thousands of years ago, and no one's sure how they showed up. I've even heard a theory that that was when most animals suddenly gained sapience."

"And Sonic's was the second biggest?"

"Yep. I don't know the details, so don't bother asking. It's what turned him blue, did all that stuff, and how he got his speed. I think speed might be one of the more common Effects, considering most of the Chaos-Touched are faster than usual. I actually think that if Sonic's hadn't gone off, the world would be far different."

"Huh. And they've been building up again?"

"Yeah. I feel bad for the guy or girl that gets nailed with the next one. I've been picking up small fluctuations for a while, but they're small, tiny. Been getting bigger, which means that other Effects could be happening. Why? Notice anything weird?"

This time it was Nick's turn to breathe deeply. "Yeah, kind of. Things that keep happening for no reason or explanation. People I know or see doing something that isn't what they did or said. Visions of the future, I guess." Nick looked worriedly down at the still sleeping bunny next to him. They both had similar experiences.

Miles winced, "Ooh...that's...that's bad. If you're seeing stuff like that, it could be anything, from someone close to you getting the Effect to you yourself. My only recommendation is to stay away from the Chaos Emeralds."

"Would that do anything? You said yourself they're sentient. Not sure how that works, because aren't they just crystal?"

"There's no harm in trying. If it happens, it will happen. You can't fight Chaos, but you can sure not go quietly. The Emeralds...we don't know what they are. Their internal structure resembles that of a gem, thus the name the 'Chaos Emeralds', but we don't know if they are or not. It's possible the inside is just pure energy. Every time I try to get a reading the measurements are thrown off."

"By the way...can the Emeralds...mind control mammals?"

"Mind control? Not that I've seen, but they can make their desires known. Usually it's to want their energy released, or for all seven to come together. So I guess it's possible, but unlikely. Why?"

"No reason, Miles. No reason at all," Nick trailed off, looking worriedly over Judy at his side. Was that just another Effect...or something else entirely?

* * *

It always feels weird when someone asks me questions. It's especially weird if it's questions about the Chaos Theory, no less. I mean, few people know that it exists, and even fewer know I wrote it, with a lot of assistance from Shadow, Sonic, Knuckles, and all the other Chaos-Touched that I had to interview for it. The entire series of papers took nearly four years of number crunching and work to finish.

But there we were, Nick and myself, about five hundred, maybe four hundred where it was thinner, feet underground, talking about the Chaos Theory. I felt lucky, truthfully. Eggman's robots and the Cerbertail hit the ceiling with their lasers, so they trapped themselves in here too. I was actually kind of surprised that more robots hadn't passed by, but I guess after the one scan they decided we weren't here.

The nearest exit had to be about four, maybe five miles away as the crow flies. Who knows how far in this underground maze?

The questions though, made me think. If Nick Wilde had been experiencing a Chaos Effect, long before making contact with an Emerald, that means that either he or someone he's close to, which from what I could see can only be Hopps, will be the main target of the Effect. Based on his experiences, it was never a question of 'why' or 'how'. The question becomes, 'When?'. Eggman has a habit of creating and sowing Chaos and disorder wherever he goes, so I have a feeling it'd be sometime soon. Sonic's not going to be here for another twelve hours at the earliest. After our rest, maybe ten or eight. I don't know, I lost track of time. I forgot to check what time I actually came in here.

Which will be much too late. Already Wilde and I killed an hour of time. Kind of felt it was necessary since, you know, it was kind of my fault that the bunny went and had an adrenaline rush and got hurt as bad as she did. Then there was the city itself; if they didn't know that Hopps and Wilde were down here, they wouldn't have much warning. If I had to estimate, the city had about five hours since the cave-in before Eggman burst out.

We had four hours left. Three if I wanted to be cautious. I breathed deeply before turning the fox police officer- still never thought I'd actually hear that phrase in Zootopia of all places- "We should get going. I don't think there's much time left."

Wilde nodded, and picked up Hopps and carefully laid her on his back, almost piggy back style. "Right, then here we go. I'll go slow," I said, slowly jogging forward at a measly twenty. Which I then found out is much faster than what most of these officers can do fully healed and sprinting. Well. Ok then.

"Alright, secondary plan, I run, you guys follow. I'll go full speed and leave signs for you two."

Wilde held out his paw, "No, we aren't letting you out of our sight if we can help it."

I smirked at him, and I could tell he did a mental facepalm. "Well, I guess you just can't help it then!" I said, sprinting off into the distance. I know I shouldn't really talk smack to the officers who are only trying to help...most of the time...but seriously, it's not as if I have a massive record against me or something. Then I remember, oh right, I kind of did.

The cave was actually a fairly nice one once I got used to it. It felt a lot like the Mystic Cave Zone from West Island, actually. Except less things actually trying to kill me. And bottomless spike traps. And spike traps that are impossible to get out without flying. I would have thought that by now this place would be crawling with E-2000 robots, but during the first ten minutes I didn't see a single one. Every time I took a turn I put a mark down, a simple arrow into the dirt. When I came back due to a dead end, I erased it and put another arrow where I was heading.

It didn't take me long to get to a large room that had apparently been where the mine had been saving their chemicals. Mostly because Eggman had refurnished it and had used the same room for the Egg Scorpion thing, it's just that now I was on the other side, and about fifty feet up. With no handrails, because Eggman doesn't believe in this little thing called 'safety'. It was surprisingly empty, the Cerbertail gone.

I waited a few minutes to see if Wilde and Hopps would come along, and when they didn't I started to get worried. I decided to double back, make sure they didn't take a wrong turn or something, only to run into them about ten feet later. "Come on, there's a pathway up ahead where Eggman...was..." I trailed off as we came back in. The Egg Scorpion, which hadn't been there a few seconds ago, now was. So was Eggman, looking like he was making small repairs to it. Which was really odd, because he usually prefers to just make new things rather than repair them.

"Huh...so that's what Eggman looks like..." Judy whispered from atop Nick's back. I stared at her for a moment. When had she woken up? "Nick...call dispatch. See the radio tower? I bet you can bounce a signal off that," she said, pointing to a large antenna on the side. I admit, I hadn't seen it, and it must've missed the destruction of the room previously when Eggman was trying to battle it out with me. My luck must've been holding out.

And then I remembered what a horrible idea it is to use a radio in a large mostly empty room. But before I could stop it, I could hear him say, "Dispatch, this is officers Hopps and Wilde. We're underneath Snowpeak, and we have eyes on the fat bastard himself."

"Copy that officers. Do not engage, repeat, do not engage. We're sending out all available officers to your location," the radio crackled loudly, despite the volume being at minimum, echoing over the entire room. Eggman immediately leapt up, and looked at all three of us with what I could only call his 'I have no idea what I'm doing but I'm pretty sure it's evil' face.

* * *

>   
> From: Tails  
> To: Sonic
> 
> Definitely found Eggman. By the way, what's the best way of not getting lost in a maze? I got turned around a lot.

* * *

>   
> From: Sonic  
> To: Tails
> 
> Tails,
> 
> Take a left turn. Always take left turns, you'll eventually get out. It just takes a while. Or right turns. The point is take a direction and stick with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's fourteen. Three chapters left. Also a more in-depth look at what the Chaos Theory actually is. If it seems complicated, that's because it is. Quick question for everyone; I wrote a post-mortem for this story. Should I post it at the end of the story? If so, should I attach it to the bottom of the final chapter or post it as it's own chapter?
> 
> Also Tails doesn't know first aid too well. Fortunately Nick does.
> 
> Until Next Time!


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 15. Should be exciting. Should also be a long one.

"Well hello there Foxboy. Fancy meeting you in here. Again. And you brought some friends," Robotnik said, his mustache moving up and down as he spoke, as if it was a mouth itself. He stared up at Nick, Judy, and Miles from his place down below. There was silence for a moment before he seemed to frown, "Well? Are you going to be that rude to me Tails? Introduce your friends! It's always rude to not know who you're attacking."

Miles narrowed his eyes, and Judy could almost see the sapphire's grow cold with hatred. "Fine then, Eggman," the vulpine said quickly, smirking when the doctor twitched a bit. "The fox is Nick Hopps, the bunny is Judy Wilde."

Nick and Judy stared at the fox for a moment, before looking at each other, shrugging, and going back to the staring contest between two nemeses. Did Miles get their names wrong on purpose, or did he seriously think those were their names? Names were easy to remember in Zootopia; they were all puns. All of them. Robotnik blinked, his small beady eyes staring at the fox incredulously. "You mean Nicolas Wilde and Judith Hopps, correct?"

"Yeah, them."

"You work with them and don't even remember their names. How appropriate. No wonder most of your friends only go by one name, it's all you can remember!" Robotnik taunted, his arms opening in amusement as he started chuckling. It held an edge to it, one that Judy and Nick knew all too well.

"Orr..." Nick drawled out, getting the attention of both the other fox and the...Judy and Nick weren't actually sure what Robotnik was, if he was human or not, as they had almost never seen such a...round...human before. "You just told us that you knew of us too." At Miles' grin, they realized that yes, Miles did remember their names perfectly. Simple trickery.

Robotnik stopped for a moment, before laughing maniacally. "Hoohoohoo! I suppose I did, didn't I? Well done Tails, well done. Unfortunately it's not going to matter, as all of you are going to die here. So sad. Hope you had your wills in order," he said gleefully grinning, acting as if he was about ready to jump in the giant scorpion.

Only to get a tranquilizer dart in the neck, sticking out and looking rather painful, as his actions suddenly slowed and he started swaying back and forth. Miles turned to see Judy, still hanging on on Nick's back, holding out her tranq gun. "Nice shot..." Nick said. It really had been. She had hid the gun around Nick's fur, and aiming downward at nearly one hundred feet isn't the easiest of targets.

"He looked like a target," Judy smiled back softly. Nick had to admit, he really did; with his large overly red ensemble it really did seem as if he wanted to attract attention. "Now come on, we should head down there, make sure he doesn't wake up," she continued. Nick nodded, and started to make as if he was going to back through the mine.

Miles rolled his eyes and grabbed Nick's paw. "Do you guys remember who you have, right here? I can carry you both easy," he said, giving a quick glance to his two large tails, swishing around in...Nick wasn't too sure why Miles' tails were moving actually. Maybe they just did that automatically.

"Ok, but don't drop us..." Nick said, narrowing his eyes. It was a long drop, and if he hadn't had Judy on his back he probably would have gone for it anyways. It's not often that he gets asked to fly by one of the only flying non-flying fox foxes. 'Try saying that fives times fast,' Nick thought with an internal smirk.

"Relax, I'll grab on too, and I can carry you," Judy said from on between Nick's ears. Miles smirked a bit, before hovering in the air in front of them, his tails twirling madly. Nick's longer arms were almost the same height as Judy's shorter ones, and they both felt for Miles' arms as he reached down.

Once he felt that they wouldn't let go, he slowly rose, before moving over to the side of the catwalk, and slowly letting himself descend. Nick suddenly said, "It's times like this that makes me wish I wore a parachute. You don't have a safety harness, do you Miles?" Judy could hear the slight worry in his voice, although that was only because she knew him so well that she could hear the slight uptick.

"Ha, no. At least this is only fifty feet. There was one time where I had to lift Sonic for nearly four minutes straight three hundred feet in the air, with him jumping off to hit Eggman. Trust me, this is easy. You guys are light."

And Miles was telling the truth. To him; Nick and Judy combined weighed barely sixty pounds, if that. It was true that he hadn't flown himself for a while, but fifty feet was nothing. Even with the added weight, he could've probably flown for another two or three minutes. He thought about doing a few flips or turns, but decided against it. He didn't want to freak out his passengers more than what was necessary.

It freaked Nick out more than it should've, having nothing below him, to the side of him, or anything that could be used to slow his fall except for the mammal above him. He could hear the soft helicopter sounds coming from above him, and while he wasn't too surprised to see that Miles could legitimately fly, he had seen at least that much from other videos and movies and such, he was surprised that Miles would offer it.

Now if it was Nick, this is when he'd drop the two officers he was carrying and run away, if he was still a con-mammal. Instead, he remembered what Cream had said earlier, 'He's a good guy, bad things jut generally happen to him.' He would just have to suck it up and trust in Miles... Oh god when did he go crazy?

Judy, on the other hand, was having the time of her life. Sure, the bottom of her feet hurt like no tomorrow, but even then she'd probably be up and about not too long from now. A lot of bunnies would think she was crazy for having her life be in the hand of two predators, let alone two foxes, but for her...this was just another day as an officer. Although really, how often does one take down an internationally known megalomaniac with a single tranquilizer?

"Hey, Hopps...how long do those tranqs last?" Miles asked as he neared the floor. He heard a sigh of relief from Nick that he promptly ignored. It wouldn't have been the first time someone did that when he gave them lifts. He understood that most mammals, or even just beings in general except birds, preferred to have solid ground beneath them at all times.

"Could be anywhere from ten minutes to an hour, depending on size. For someone his size, I'd say about thirty minutes," Judy said, motioning to the large madman's body. She had to do a quick double take, and immediately starting looking around in fear. The body, exactly where Robotnik was not fifteen seconds before, had vanished.

"I never thought I'd see the day where a second rabbit would try to outwit me. It was bad enough when one did it," Robotnik's voice rang out from his pod, the glass screen suddenly closing shut. They could only watch as he almost delicately pulled the dart out of his neck, crushing it in his fist. "Too bad you're not going to get an extra life," he said, narrowing his eyes.

"Shit. Grab on!" Miles said, immediately pulling Nick's arm and swinging him onto his back, as the remaining robotic tail pulled up and started to charge a laser. Nick yelped but pulled himself in, ensuring with his other hand to keep Judy stable.

"He's firing to the left!" Judy yelled as Miles started running up the long ramp to the surface, and swerved to the right. They all felt the heat come off of it as it scorched the earthen mine black.

"Oh ho ho ho! All robots, get the fox! And try to see if you can keep the other two alive, I have plans for them. If you can't, not to worry. You just won't get raises this year," Robotnik announced from behind the three, steadily gaining on them as his Scorpi-bot stomped loudly.

"Crap, hold on you two, take a deep breath, I might have to go supersonic!" Miles said. He heard the laser charge behind him, and he saw the other passageways, the ones that had held all the E-2000's before, fill up with the yellow humanoid bots.

"Judy hang on for a sec, I have a plan!" Nick said. He felt the grey rabbit grab on tighter, and felt around for his own gun. Knowing that he would only have a few shots, he turned around and aimed for the large glowing 'stinger'. He fired a small yellow bullet, completely with blue tip on the end. He missed completely.

"Come on, I don't have many of these! Miles, try to keep a straight line for a second!" Nick called back, firing off two more, one which ricocheted around and the other got sent wildly off course, ending up in one of the robots. It froze for a moment, before it dropped to the ground lifeless. Not much protection on the robots then; Eggman must not have anticipated electromagnetic pulses.

"Sure, if you want to end up with bullet holes!" Miles yelled back, but deciding to heed the officer's...'advice'. They trusted him before, back during the maze and during the flight down. He should give them the same respect. Besides, EMP bullets might actually do something. And he couldn't do anything if he was busy trying to keep them alive and running for it at the same time.

Feeling Miles straighten out, Nick checked his ammo supply. Three left. Why didn't he take the entire bag when he was still up top? Taking quick aim now that he had a steady...steadier...surface, he fired another one at the still loudly charging laser, nearing full charge and ready to fire.

It dinged off the metal to seemingly no effect, and just as Nick was about ready to curse, the shockwave emitted from the round. Electricity covered the tail, immediately knocking out all power to the robotic appendage. The energy it had been charging fled back into the system, causing small explosions among the tail, finally ending with it exploding at the base, rupturing it and rendering it lifeless on the ground.

"Hold your breath, I'm getting us out of here!" Miles said. He waited a few moments, hoping that both Nick and Judy heard him, before he settled into an easy stride...the same stride Sonic had when he decided to live up to his name. He looked ahead to the cave-in, still covering most of the light. A loud boom echoed around him as he pushed himself to the fastest he could possibly go. Robotnik had been left in the dust ages ago.

"This is gonna hurt," Miles said softly, hoping that his rings were up to the task considering he couldn't spindash at the moment, not without majorly injuring, if not outright killing Nick. The task at hand?

Breaking through the rocks. Miles only had a few moments to see it, and it looked like most of the E-2000's had been up here firing lasers at the rock to melt it, and was about halfway done. 'Good, maybe this won't kill me then,' Tails' thought, as he slammed into the rocks going nearly eight hundred miles per hour.

* * *

Ow. Pain. Ow pain pain. Ow pain.

I had a ringing in my ears that I'm not so sure was actually from me or not. I think I heard the two officers yelling into a radio, but their words were rather fuzzy.

Eventually the memories put themselves together. Right, I slammed myself face-first into a pile of rocks. A rather large pile of rocks. "Good, he's coming 'round!" I hear someone yell. Think it was Nick, as he was the only one not hurt. At least, I hope he wasn't hurt, because if it was Hopps then wow I feel bad for her.

Well, I wasn't dead. So there's that. In other news, that actually only took me about twenty of my eighty rings. In worse news, I have only sixty rings left. "Call, Cyclone..." I tried to stumble out. I probably had some kind of concussion. I mean, I did slam myself going supersonic.

I"m pretty sure there's a record for 'number of stupid things attempted by sidekicks without heroes around', and I'm pretty sure I just tied myself with Luigi and Robin.

"Don't try to talk, come on we have to head back to ZPD now!" I heard a voice, definitely Judy's now that I can focus a bit more. I focused on breathing, and used another ten rings to force any injuries I had closed. Ring healing was a fancy way of saying 'oh god please Chaos do something why am I in such pain here have some rings just do it!'. The more rings, the better the effects. Kind of like my old nanobots, which I haven't used in a long time. They're still in the Cyclone, last I checked.

But the warmth from the rings did its job, and I felt myself think clearer and clearer. "Let me see the radio," I said quickly. Judy, sitting in the passenger seat of their police car quickly passed it back to me.

So the thing about police radios is they operate on an open frequency. Which means that anyone can listen in once they figure out the frequency, which is usually kept pretty quiet, and changed once every month or so...if they're smart. What that also means is that these things can change to any frequency, assuming that one knows how to hack in. Which I do. I quickly got access to its broadcast frequency, I'm pretty sure Judy and Nick had no idea what I was doing, and changed it to a pre-determined encrypted frequency. "Cyclone, Command Zeta, User Alpha, Password Beta-Sigma," I said quickly, quietly, and with practiced ease.

In reality I had never used that saying before, but hey it's always handy to have radio codes to a biplane that has an almost unlimited amount of bombs in it. I handed back the radio, after changing back the frequency, and said quickly, "I'm fine now, I'll distract Eggman, you guys run and get the ZPD to try to evacuate!"

"It's too late for that, the other security drones have gone rogue. With the exception of the ones you broke at some point, they're all fighting," Nick said from the driver seat, barely turning his head.

"Darnit..." I said. The robots were already attacking. If I know Eggman's style, he's not aiming to kill, but to incapacitate. At least, that was his style years ago. He's shown since that he has no qualms about killing those in his way these days.

An idea struck me. We simply needed more time, more mammals capable of fighting back. The ZPD has EMP rounds, but they're going to be stretched thin. A smirk slowly adorned itself as I weighed the pros and cons. The comings of a plan slowly unfolded into my head, a plan could actually work...I reached into my pants pocket for my phone.

Remember, ages ago, how I said I dodge to protect myself, and not my stuff? I need to remember how to dodge for my stuff too, as I pulled out the hulking wreckage of a laserified phone. Perfect. End sarcasm.

"I need to borrow one of your phones," I asked quickly. Judy reacted with almost practiced like nature to immediately take out her phone and hand it to me. It felt kind of small, but it'd do. I quickly dialed in Cream's number.

"Not a good time!" I heard her voice come through.

"Definitely a good time! Get to the ZPD headquarters, I have a plan! Change to frequency 115.3!" I said, before switching over my headset radio. Despite quite literally hitting it going supersonic, it was somehow...hopefully...still functioning. I handed back the phone to Judy, who was staring at me questioningly. I wonder if they were wondering if I was going insane, coming up with a plan like this at the drop of hat. I wouldn't blame them.

"Head to Tundratown, pick up a vixen by the name of Skye, she runs an auto-repair shop. Head to my place, I'll give you more directions through Cream!" I said, as I opened up the door of their cruiser and rolled out, getting some extremely strange looks from the other two. "Relax, I have no idea what I'm doing!" I grinned and ran off back towards the mountain.

You know, where I could see the giant robotic scorpion thing just now getting out of the cave system. By the way, Sonic, I still want one for Christmas.

* * *

"Did he just roll out the damn door!?" Nick asked in surprise. He had heard the door open, and then the cruiser beeped at him loudly to tell him that the door was open. He turned around just in time to see the orange vulpine roll out the door, stopping easily and turning around quickly.

"Yes, he did...trust him or not Nick?" Judy asked. She didn't particularly want to follow Miles' orders, but then again, he supposedly had an idea. What kind of an idea that was, she didn't know. He had done...something...to the radio, not even a few minutes ago, and then promptly left after borrowing her phone. What was he up to?

"We've come this far...do you hear something?" Nick asked, turning onto one of the other streets that would lead into the frozen arctic tundra. He kept his ears propped; a loud buzzing had filled the air.

"Wait, when he used the radio he said Cyclone...you don't think that he called his plane!?"

Nick looked at one of the mirrors. Sure enough, he could see an orange-ish shape running around the other robot, with a smaller blue one in the background. "Yes he did Carrots...yes he did." Small explosions came in a line as the pilot-less plane completely a small bombing run.

"ZPD, this is cruiser 297 checking in where we're needed," Judy said, pulling the radio back out to her. She waited a customary few moments, before starting to repeat when the they got a response.

"Hopps, Wilde!" Chief Bogo's voice cut through, "we have a situation. And we need-" his voice suddenly cut out to be replaced by a much younger girl's voice. It took only a few moments for Judy to recognize the doe that they had interviewed just the previous day, Cream.

"-That's them isn't it! I told you they'd check in."

"Yes, yes, we need them-"

"-to listen to Tails!"

"What, no we need-"

"Listen, I have a feeling I know what's Tails' is planning. Get to Tundratown-" Judy could hear Bogo and Cream arguing in the background.

"I suppose this is when we say that we're lucky that Zootopia's slow to adopt security drones?" Nick asked sarcastically. Judy rolled her eyes, "We're already there. Miles mentioned something about a vixen named Skye-"

"Yes, her! Grab her, she's four blocks down and take a left, head back to Tails' place!" Cream shouted as even they could hear Chief Bogo yell something at the other dispatchers.

"Miss Rabbit, please do as you are told! Need I remind you that you are a civilian!" they heard Bogo roar.

"I am doing what I'm told! You asked me to help out, so I'm helping out! Go back to doing whatever it is you're supposed to be doing! Oh, do one of you two have a phone that has internet access?" they heard Cream ask politely, directly after yelling back at Bogo. It was kind of strange to hear the girl change tones suddenly.

"Uh, yeah I do..." Judy managed to stammer out. Nick was halfway paying attention to the road, and the rest was staring at the radio in amazement. That someone not only had the guts to stand up to Bogo when in full rage mode, but actually yelled back at him? Tiny, but fierce.

"Good, download the codeWrite app, it's what Tails' uses. Skye should be familiar with it already, I called her to let her know what's up. Pick her up and get to Tails' place ASAP. Call back if you need anything. There's too much going on to stay on the line constantly. Darnit Tails, try to lead him back to Tundratown or the Rainforest!" the radio promptly hung up with a static buzz.

"Do you ever get the feeling that we're the only ones that don't know what's going on? Wait, is that her?" Nick asked, pointing ahead. Judy looked up from the app store to see an arctic fox vixen standing outside one of the shops.

"Yeah, I think that's her. Got it, a small download," Judy said as she rolled down her window. They ran up to the curb nearest the vixen. "Skye, right?" Judy called out. The vixen, dressed in small tan clothes and a large blue overcoat nodded. "Get in!"

"Oh thank god you guys have the heater on in here," she said as she stepped into the backseat. Judy extended her paw after rolling the window back up, keeping the heat trapped inside.

"Judy Hopps, ZPD."

Skye took it and shook it gratefully, "Skye Lanmark, Skye's Auto Repair. So what's going on? I got a call from a friend of a friend that something happened with the drones?"

"We don't know. Apparently the robots went out of control and starting shooting up everyone and everything. The other officers would know more, but we were underground trying to help out with Robotnik," Nick said from the front seat, barely giving her a glance back over.

"Robotnik? He's here!?" Skye asked incredulously.

Judy nodded solenmly, "Miles thinks he's trying to do a takeover, like what he did to South and West Islands years ago," Judy answered.

"That's why he asked about the port things...I knew something was off about that. Did he say anything about what he need me to do?"

Judy shook her head, and reached for the radio. "Dispatch, we got Skye. What exactly do we need her to do?"

"Great! Judy, give her your phone, I hope you downloaded the codeWrite app. Skye, access Tails' private server, it's IP-" and she rattled off a chain of numbers and letters that only vaguely seemed English, " and password is 'ProwerIndustries', capital P and I, no space. Find the code for the, sorry-" she cut herself off, trying to listen in to another conversation, "- ok, Tails just told me it's the filename E5400virushack dot tee ex tee. Really Tails? It's like you aren't even trying anymore..." Cream answered.

"But, why couldn't I do this just from the internet?" Skye asked as she punched in all the details. The entire thing was well above Judy and Nick's head, and it was obviously above Cream's too. She must have been talking with Tails directly somehow.

"Um...something about a proximity thing. You have to be within a certain distance of Tails' place to use it...oh, and Tails says to bring the Chaos Emerald out of his lab, and don't touch anything else, it could be explosive."

"Explosive!?" Nick yelled, "why on Earth would he have explosives!?"

"I don't know, catch him for a third time and he might tell you. Third time's the charm and all that. Bye, more calls coming in," Cream said as she hung up again.

"So we're forty minutes out from Tails' place...why the hell would the kid have explosives..." Nick muttered.

"I don't think he's nearly as innocent as he plays himself out to be," Judy said, "in fact he kind of reminds me of another mammal I knew about," she finished, looking directly at Nick.

"He's not innocent. He's probably seen more action than you two have, combined. Forty minutes you say...hope he's doing alright..." Skye said quietly.

* * *

I knew one thing; I was not doing alright.

Cream was currently yelling my ear about the thousands of kinds of crap she was having to deal with, what with Bogo behind her, me demanding stuff, Wilde and Hopps being crazier than usual, and I'm not going to get into Skye. So that's why my ears hurt. My nose currently hurts because let's face it, explosives, if they're set off next to you, have a distinct smell of something burning. And it's not a nice smell. Granted, it didn't bother me as much as it could, but it was there, what with my penchant on using explosives. My eyes were hurting because Eggman decided to charge at me from the same direction as the sun, so of course it was reflecting in multiple places right into my face. Whether or not it was intended, and Eggman is evil enough to fully intend to do something like that, it was annoying.

And finally, the final nail in the coffin; my watch was telling me I was missing the Chaos Engineering final. The one that's worth like half my grade and if I miss it I can't make it up because college? That one. And the worst part is the professors I don't think would believe me when I said that I had to go stop Eggman from tearing up the city. And make no mistake, he was tearing up the city. The fake arthropod's legs literally dug into the concrete, ripping it up whenever it moved...which was a lot. I mean, he was trying to hit me. Good luck with that Eggman. Who knows, this fight could be comparable to the 'drill-mobile'.

"Stop moving you arrogant little fox!" I heard him shout from behind me. I stopped for only a moment to give him a cheshire grin as he then attempted to trip me up using one of its eight legs. I flew over it.

"Really. It's like you made this to fight Sonic, not me."

"So what if I did!? I wasn't expecting you to actually show up!"

"Aww, I'm hurt Eggman. After all we've been through; Perfect Chaos, Final Hazard, Metal Overlord, Dark Gaia...one would think you'd have some more respect for me considering the Lost Hex and all."

"That only happened because of their incompetence!"

"Sure. Definitely theirs, and definitely not yours. Come and get some Eggman!" I yelled, before ducking into one of the other major streets leading to the Rainforest District. I was getting updates from Cream about the whole robot armageddon scenario, and it wasn't looking pretty.

"Cream, how long until Wilde and Hopps get to my place? And you did tell them about the Chaos Bombs right?" I asked into my earpiece. I already knew that Eggman had hacked in and was able to hear both sides of the conversation, but I didn't really care too much. I was distracting him, and while I was doing that he couldn't be off making things worse.

"They say about another half an hour. And yes, I did. Tails, we got two more robots behind you!" Cream's voice answered. I looked around wildly, wondering how she knew which direction I was facing. "Cameras, Tails. Cameras. Apparently Chief Bogo's picked up a thing or two from watching Nick and Judy."

Right. Duh. I quickly spindashed the two drones out of commission, and quickly returned to running with the Scorpi-bot behind me. "Right. Well, tell them to hurry up! I'm not sure how many more bombs the Cyclone can make without its emerald," I said, pausing in an alleyway as another group of ten dropped from my plane.

I would never care to think how lucky we all were that it didn't have any of the tail lasers anymore. Because wow, that would've been bad.

* * *

>   
> To: Sonic  
> From: Tails
> 
> I think you're better off either hurrying up or turning around. I'm typing this in an alleyway while Eggman keeps looking for me. I keep forgetting how fun it is to fight him...

* * *

>   
> To: Tails  
> From: Sonic
> 
> Tails,
> 
> I know right? It really is a lot more fun than it seems. Anyway, speeding up now. Should be there in another hour or so, if you could hold him off that long. Stay safe, and if you call don't worry if I don't answer. Phones don't like being used at mach 1.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that was chapter 15. Things are speeding up for one, and slowing down for another. I hope that I at least got the point of 'everything is happening extremely quickly' down. Because it really is.
> 
> Anyways, two chapters left. Only two! Wow this story has gone so far...and yet still just as bad as it was when the first chapter went up. I need to learn how to edit better.
> 
> Until Next Time!


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter before the true final chapter.

"Tails wants me to tell you guys to hurry up," Cream's voice cut through the radio. Nick grabbed it before Judy could, and after a childish sticking out of his tongue, he answered.

"We're going as fast as I feel safe. We're already going eighty with the sirens on. ETA is...what is our ETA Carrots?"

Judy rolled her eyes at the older vulpine, who certainly doesn't act like he was older, "At current speed, about fifteen minutes. You could probably bump it up to a hundred or so."

"In this rain?" Nick asked, pointing to the fact that even in the middle of a crisis, where Dr. Robotnik was quite literally taking over the city, the Rainforest District lives up to its name. It was raining. Not hard, but enough that it made Nick wary of gunning the engine. "Are you trying to get us killed?"

Skye piped up from the back, "Well if you have the normal gripped tires you could hit ninety."

"We don't, this cruiser doesn't have the weight for it. We have one of the smallest cars that the ZPD have," Judy explained. "She is right though, ninety sounds good."

"I think you've been hanging around Miles too much. Remember Carrots, speed plus water equals ouchies. We don't have that kind of time." Judy rolled her eyes, knowing that when Nick was driving it was better to just ignore him, especially when it came to critiquing his driving ability.

"Got a signal yet Skye?" Judy asked, deliberately avoiding talking to Nick. He pouted a bit, but did seem to acquiesce, and sped up a bit.

The vixen shook her head, "No, not yet. I don't know how strong Miles' signal is."

"He says you should be able to reach it when you're about three miles away from his place. Also, he's taken care of the roads out there so once you clear the rain you should be good to go. Also he says that it's easier if you're closer. Also he wants to remind you guys that he needs the Chaos Emerald there, and don't touch it with your bare paws," Cream said, the radio crackling her voice a bit as she hung up directly afterwards.

"Right, so we have to make the trip there anyways. So Skye, what is it that you do exactly?" Nick asked nonchalantly.

"I'm a mechanic," she answered almost hesitatingly.

"He's asking how Miles knows you," Judy piped up, attempting to look bored at the conversation but her ears denied her that; they were standing at full attention taking in every sound they could. Nick nodded a bit.

"Oh! I own the shop there. Miles used to come in all the time to order certain parts. Nothing illegal or anything, just kind of random parts."

"And you manage to stay in business? Even after the fiasco last year?" Nick wondered aloud. It couldn't be easy for a fox, even a smaller arctic fox like Skye to stay in the market when the business requires trust upon common mammals.

"It's hard sometimes, yeah. I uh...someone helped me get through those months after I neglected my rent for a bit too long," Skye blushed a bit, the red managing to come out despite the white of her fur. Nick's ears perked up a bit, and Judy recognized it as well. Dangerous topic, and a secret that Skye was not going to part with easily.

"That must've been some business partner. Almost out of the rain now," Nick said, pointing to the receding rain lines. In the thick of the jungle lines were crisscrossing everywhere, but in the outskirts it thins out to the point it's only one or two lines every ten feet. Enough to create rain, but not enough for jungle.

Judy felt her back get pushed into the seat as Nick accelerated. She almost wished that she could look over Nick's shoulder to watch the speedometer rise, but knew that it was her job to keep an eye on Skye. "Hey Skye...how come you didn't bring your phone?" Judy asked, when she noticed that Skye was typing something out.

Skye looked up, "I don't exactly have a phone right now. Almost everything I have goes to the shop," she said. Judy nodded, filing that away in her head.

"Ok, we're almost there. Keep an eye on the wifi gauge. Cream, does Miles have a password on his?" Nick said, almost forgetting to grab the radio. He was on one of the many straightaways heading outside Zootopia.

Cream took a few seconds to respond, "He says there isn't, you just have to get close enough and search for 'Prower Industries'-really Tails?- but there's no password, no one else lives out there! There is a password on the server though, that's the one I gave you guys earlier."

Skye kept checking the wireless internet access icon every few seconds. As they steamed onwards, eventually she got a hit, "Got it! Ok, I hit the green button, anything else that I need to do?"

"Yeah, Tails wants you to stay there and keep checking the update process, it's on his main screen in his lab. If it stalls restart it! Also he wants you to try and fix up the Tornado if you have time, that's why he grabbed...Gosh darn it Tails..." they heard Cream sigh.

"...He wants me... to fix his plane," Skye said in disbelief.

"...You want to hit him too, don't you."

"Just kind of. Just...just kind of," Skye managed out, and Judy suddenly realized why Nick didn't date vixens often. Because if you got on their bad side, then you got on their bad side and often didn't make it back.

Nick slowed down quickly as they got closer and closer to the dull grey building that was Miles' lab house. Almost without waiting for it to stop, he slid out and ran over to the other side. He knew that Judy was still technically injured, and although she took some painkillers he wasn't sure that he should let her walk, considering that about half of her feet's skin had been blown off by lasers.

He quickly lifted her up, not giving her any time to disagree, as they rushed in to the place, Skye following them. "Lab's in here!" Nick said, barely looking over the dusty living room. The TV occasionally gave out idle sounds about the battle going on.

He pushed open the steel door with a loud 'clang'. The lights were already on. In the corner where it stood last time lay the red Tornado biplane. The only thing missing from the last time they had seen it was the blue one, the Cyclone. Skye pushed her way through to the main computer, a terminal barely five feet from the almost annoyingly bright Chaos Emerald.

Underneath the desk lay three metallic orbs, glowing slightly but obviously not activated. 'Those must be the explosives...hmm...' Judy thought. "Hey Nick, put me down, I have an idea," she said. Nick looked at her worryingly but gradually obliged her. She touched down on the cold ground with barely a slight wince, although Nick could tell it was rather painful for her.

"You grab the Emerald, I don't want that thing anywhere near me. And you heard what Miles said, use gloves!" Judy said, heading underneath the counter to check out the glowing spheres. She pushed one and waited for it to rebound back, trapped in space as it was. Grinning, she grabbed it and pulled it out, surprised by the lack of weight. Despite it being nearly her size, it only weighed barely half of what she did! Trying to ignore the pain from her feet, and walking on her heels as much as she could, she went about grabbing the spheres and putting them into their police cruiser. Neither Skye nor Nick seemed to notice.

Nick was too busy trying to understand the Chaos Emerald interface. There was a lock for it, although it seemed impossible to understand it with wires and colored neon tubes heading out everywhere from the grey lock. "How am I supposed to try to get this thing out?" Nick asked, trying to look at the wall to see if there was a place, any at all, that he could use to pry the Emerald out.

"Oh wait, hold on, there's a program on the desktop for that. 'Emergency Emerald Release', yeah that has to be it!" Skye said, quickly double clicking. The lights dimmed but stayed on as the Emerald clasps released one by one.

The Emerald then quickly dropped onto the desk's surface, landing with a solid thunk. Nick grabbed one of the gloves just hanging around, trying to ignore the fifth finger spot, as he grabbed the glowing gem.

Even through the gloves, he could feel it's warmth, and it's power. It was a feeling unlike any other that he had seen or felt, and suddenly he knew why these gems were so dangerous. Power unimaginable...

"C'mon Carrots, let's get out of here..." Nick started, turning around to find that his partner had somehow managed to leave the room. "Carrots?" he asked.

"Misplace your bunny?" Skye asked, not looking away from the screens.

"She's not my bunny. She's my partner, Lanmarck," Nick replied hotly, leaving the lab. "Carrots? You out here?"

The TV answered, "I bring you live from Savannah Central northside, where the internationally known madman known as 'Dr. Robotnik', has been seen roaming the streets in what looks like half a ruined giant robotic spider. Reports account that he's being led through the streets by none other than Tails. Sonic has last been seen in Empire City, although what his sidekick and partner is doing here without him is unknown. Stay tuned for more updates as soon as we get them."

"Carrots?" Nick asked, ignoring the television and heading out to their cruiser, where he found the small grey bunny pushing a relatively large metal sphere marked with 'Danger; Explosive' signs into the trunk. He took a quick peek and somehow she had managed to get two others in there already.

"Alright, you're done," he said, pushing the ball inside, trying to keep it well away from any other source, followed by picking Judy up. He laughed a bit at her pout as she closed the door.

"I had it covered..." she whined quietly. Nick rolled his eyes.

"Sure. Come on, Hopps, hop in," he said, opening the door on the passenger side and letting the grey bunny climb in. He didn't need to check to feel the wetness on his suit. She'd have to re-dress her feet in the car.

"Oh har har Nick," she said, buckling up as Nick drove away, the Chaos Emerald glowing from its place within his pocket. "I can't help but notice you haven't asked why I brought explosives."

"I can't help but notice that your bleeding again."

Judy looked down, and had the presence of mind to quietly mutter, "oh."

* * *

Well, I sure wish that those three would hurry up. "Come on Eggy, this is getting kind of old. You aren't going to catch me," I said, slightly whining. He had been...'chasing'...me for a good nearly forty minutes now, since I'd rolled out of a moving vehicle going nearly sixty miles an hour.

"Quiet you fool!" Eggman shouted, pushing his machine to go faster. I yawned, and perfectly spaced my dodging to be the exact maximum distance that its legs could go at once.

Cream's voice popped into my ear. "Robots are down, they did it!" I grinned to myself. Now then, hopefully that means that Skye could fix the Tornado up so that way once this is all over I can get the heck out of here. I'm pretty sure that if I wasn't going to be brought in for...hold on a second...speeding, unlawful entry, breaking and entering, causing a sandstorm, speeding, cyberwarfare, illegal destruction of government property, and speeding, then something was definitely wrong with the ZPD.

"Grr, I can't believe this!"

"Now you're just repeating lines. Do you have yourself recorded or something!?" I yelled.

Amusingly, Eggman actually held up what looked like an old tape recorder as he nodded. He pressed a button, and in the exact same tone as before, "Grr, I can't believe this!" played out. I hung my head and ignored the urge to facepalm. I wonder if I can get one of those recordings and set it outside Little Rodentia. Maybe I can get Eggman over there to scare 'em for real. After all, they did try to ignore me earlier.

"Hey, if it works it works. It means I don't stress out my voice nearly as much as you will," Eggman said, shrugging before continuing to gun after me.

We played this game for a little longer, continually navigating the streets of Zootopia. I wasn't sure exactly how much damage he's caused so far, but it certainly was not a small amount. "Alright then Tails, I'm done playing. Time to meet your maker!" I turned around, ready with some witty pun on my tongue, only to get frozen by what I saw. Eggman's mech was transforming from the scorpion thing to a more...I don't want to say traditional walker, but it definitely was. It was also a lot bigger than the last time I saw his walker, which was only slightly bigger than mine.

This one was nearly ten times the size of mine. Close to Egg Emperor, now that I thought about it, but with about six more laser tails on its back. Apparently each of its eight legs could shift into giant lasers.

What is with Eggman and giant lasers?

I regained my movement just an instant before the tail that would've made its arm, as I saw it had transformed into a hand with a laser out of something like Iron Mammal, tried to crush me. Fortunately I was fast enough to quickly spindash out of the way.

I was not, however, quick enough to get out of the way of the second one.

Did I mention it hurt? Because it hurt. I was sent soaring towards the skies, towards the top of the skyscrapers of downtown Zootopia, and I just barely heard him start laughing maniacally. I checked my internal ring count; fifty one. I was...not doing nearly as well as I should've been. It only took me about twenty seconds to catch myself in midair, but by then I realized that I had gone far enough to be on top of the tallest buildings, so I aimed to fly down for those.

"Alright, new plan. Cream, you got any ideas? Cream?" I wondered aloud, only to realize that being hit like that must've knocked the radio off. Oh well, no big deal, although she'd probably worry. She's a worrier, it's what she does.

I saw down far below me Eggman's new mech, along with tiny blue dots that I could only guess were police officers that were just now showing up. Good for them, I hope they don't get hurt. I ran the possible fight through my head; there was no way, even as fast as I was, that I could outwit Eggman and six more hands slash lasers. Unless I used the hit and run tactic.

It was a strategy Sonic and I had only ever had to employ a few times, and what it came down to was running insanely fast, near mach two, plowing through the mech, and then continuing. It only needed a lot of room to turn around in, that's it. And in a city, that's hard to come by...although...

Last time we did it, Sonic had a massive straightaway to build up speed. I don't, not before Eggman could see me. But on the other hand, I was also nearly five hundred feet up. If I controlled my fall enough, I could build up enough speed...or now that I think on it...

Grinning, I pushed myself off the edge, letting myself freefall for a few moments before I pushed my tails to push myself downwards and towards the buildings.

Sonic says that to run up buildings is to beat gravity. It's not easy. It's against the natural order of things, but people like Sonic and myself can push ourselves to do so. But to run down buildings, to keep control when freefalling, requires to go even faster, to outrun your own terminal velocity. And if there's one thing that Sonic and I are good at, it's outrunning anything.

I accelerated quickly, a sonic boom forming around me as I pushed myself. Faster and faster, I threw myself towards the ground. I wasn't sure how fast I was going when I hit my limit, had to be somewhere around mach two, maybe mach three. Jumping at the last possible second, I turned my momentum from vertical to horizontal, and I could see my end goal.

Not that I saw it for very long. I burst through three of the six laser hands, all three on the same side, causing small explosions where the energy they had gathered had dissipated. By the time they hit the ground, I was already three miles out and turning around.

I had to swing wide to keep up my momentum, but even I could tell that a gravity assist like this could only last so long, and I'm not Sonic. Even boosting as I was couldn't keep it up forever, so I had to make my next strike count.

Barely fifteen seconds had gone by, but once I returned, Eggman was ready for me. Darn, I was hoping he'd have forgotten the tactic. Oh well, way too late to stop now. I crashed myself into the other side, only to shear off only one as the mech tried to jump to the side, crashing into one of the nearby buildings.

I had to lose more than half my momentum as he then shot a laser at where I would have been, and light is a lot faster than sound. No more of that trick then, I guess. Still, four out of six in less than twenty seconds, not bad.

Then things got worse as the rest of the officers showed up. And on the other side, at the other end of the street, I could see Nick and Judy racing towards me. And the giant robotic mech was right in the middle. I got the feeling that he knew exactly where they were, and was starting to turn around to face them.

Fun times.

* * *

>   
> To: Sonic  
> From: Tails
> 
> Sonic,
> 
> Do you ever get tired of dealing with people who try to do the brave thing and only end up getting hurt?

* * *

>   
> To: Tails  
> From: Sonic
> 
> Tails,
> 
> Not really. I mean, I'm glad that they try to stand up! I could always do without the getting hurt part though, but that's what I'm there for. Be there in ten. Maybe fifteen, depending on 'traffic'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One chapter left. The last chapter is a bit of a doozie.
> 
> Until Next Time!


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which I did something stupid and had to re-edit this entire thing. Twice. Which is kind of bad because I really liked that first version...oh well. This is a beast of a chapter, the longest yet! Also the end. It's been a wilde ride, and I hope you all enjoy it!

I sighed internally. I really should know better, considering Murphy's law and all that. 'What can happen, will happen.' For good and for bad, and with Chaos that's...a bit more than true.

There are some times I wish that I had never laid eyes on the Chaos Emeralds, all the way back on Cocoa Island. And then I remember all of the things that happened, saving lives everywhere I could, and suddenly I don't feel that way.

The giant scorpion Mecha, Cerbertail, or as I'm going to call it for at least a little while, the 'Egg Scorcha'- although I really should try and steal Eggman's blueprints to find out what he called it- was in-between me and the newcomers. Half of the ZPD -really what were these guys doing here? I don't EMP's are that effective anymore unless they hit it when it's charging- was on my side, with the other half on the other side of the Egg Scorcha.

I heard one of the officer's yell out into a megaphone, "Stop your robot and come out with your hands up!" Eggman laughed, and as I thought about it I let out a chuckle as well. The officer, a sheep, simply shrugged as if to say 'well, someone had to at least try.'

And I couldn't really fault them for that. It's better to try and fail than to never try and not know. Although, to be fair, sometimes it is kinda silly. "Or what, dear officer? Are you going to arrest me? Put me in handcuffs, ship me off to prison?" Eggman taunted.

The sheep looked a little hesitant so I took the time I could, and yelled out, "Just about Eggman! Face it, you're about to be scrambled!" I did an internal groan at that, can't believing what I just said. I could hear a loud smack from Eggman, who also couldn't believe it. I heard him tap the tape recorder.

"Grr, I can't believe this!"

I don't understand Eggman sometimes, but having a recording of himself saying that has to be helpful. Sonic always did wonder how he managed the exact same tone all the time...well, at least we know now. That's something at least, right?

"Just for that, Tails, I'm going to go after your friends first. Then I'll deal with the rest of you!" Eggman shouted, turning around the giant mecha thing. I thought I saw an opening and rushed at it at some of the tail lasers joints, only to bounce off its armor with no damage. The bullets and EMP's also seemed to have no effect, even as the two remaining limbs (when had it begun floating, exactly? Because it was, and I hadn't noticed when. Maybe I was just used to Eggman's stuff always flying...) began charging with an ominous blue light.

I didn't have enough time to build up enough speed to knock them off course, and without any momentum built up I really couldn't do much. Sonic could; he had spines. I didn't. 'Well, I still have rings left. I'll live,' I thought, charging forward as fast as I could as a plan came to me. The lasers would kill anyone who got hit by them...except me. And if I couldn't get them off course than I had to intercept. I sighed internally as I saw the targets; of course it had to be those two. Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde.

I could see the surprise on their face, mixed in with horror as they saw the lightshow getting bigger. They had hidden themselves in an alleyway, but from what I saw the lasers would just quite literally cut through the building with no problem. They'd have to be blocked by something a bit more...chaotic. I hoped that my rings would hold up; I didn't have many, barely fifty, but it would have to be enough.

Wilde pulled the glowing Chaos Emerald out of his pocket, and threw it at me with all his strength. I'm not entirely too sure why, maybe he thought the lasers would vaporize the Emerald? That wouldn't be a bad thing though...maybe he was just afraid that something big was going to...oh. I think I saw what his plan was; the lasers would be attracted to the Emerald due to...chaos? Ok, never mind, I have no idea what Wilde's plan was.

I reached out instinctively to grab it. And then my mind remembered that I don't really wear gloves much anymore. Way to go, Miles Prower. Way to go.

I'm good at catching stuff. Big stuff, small stuff, Sonic-shaped stuff, you name it. This is one of those times I really, really wish I wasn't. I could hear the lasers finally firing from behind me (Either those officers can't shoot worth a damn, or Eggman had somehow modified his mech, mid-battle, to compensate for that. Or, knowing Eggman, he had done both. Somehow. I don't know how he was responsible for the officers, but somehow he was. I just know it.)

As soon as my fingers touched the gem, warmth flooded through me, and I could feel...faster. Like the Emerald did originally, I felt like I had a lot more energy. My mind expanded to feel that everything around me. The fear, the panic, the hope...all of it. And then my vision faded to white.

* * *

Judy wasn't entirely sure what her plan was anymore. She had brought the bombs with her because she thought they might've been useful, but as she was staring down the nearly forty foot tall robot, she realized that she had forgotten to take into account the fact that it was much taller than she had been expecting. How had Miles managed to stay alive, and actually fight well, against something that size!?

And then half of it was chunked off immediately. "What on Earth-" was all she managed out before the sonic boom hit, pushing her aside several feet and forcing Nick to reach out to stabilize her. The wind and sound alone had pushed them aside. "-was that!?" she finished, short on breath.

"I think that was Miles..." Nick got out. A few seconds later, in which the giant mech had done...something, and seemed to almost prepare for the still almost too fast to see with the naked eye blur to hit it going near full force. Another crash as the three legs it still had went down to two.

And suddenly it had jets for legs instead of its previous legs, the tails having folded up and allowing for more maneuverable firing.

They were fairly far away, far enough away to barely be able to hear the fact that a megaphone was going, along with some more shouting, although they couldn't hear what. "Oh god, Nick, hide!" she said, looking as the robot turned around, and aimed at them.

There was a small alleyway, littered with small garbage bags and a dumpster, nearby. They ran for it, hoping that the robot wouldn't actually be aiming for them, and yet at the same time hoping so. If it was aiming at them, it meant it wasn't aiming for someone else. They could see it, out of the corner of their eyes, slowly tracking them across the field. Definitely aiming at them.

"Nick, what do we do? We're not fast enough to dodge the lock-on the same way Miles is!" Judy panicked. She could see the thoughts running through Nick's head at a mile a minute, discarding plans as fast as his vulpine mind could think of them. She herself was thinking of thousands of plans, but in each of them only one of them or the other survived. She wasn't going to take that risk.

She saw Miles running for them, hoping to intercept. She saw Nick pull the Emerald out of his pocket, it's warmth and glow demanding that she try and grab it for only a second as he threw it towards the two-tailed fox.

Time seemed to slow down, almost to slow motion. She could see Miles catch the Emerald bare-pawed, breaking every rule he had ever said. She could see the expression on his face, knowing what he had just done, and preparing himself for the worst. The two remaining arm-leg lasers firing at them, each almost as large as her own body. She would be vaporized in an instant. At least it wouldn't hurt, or would only be there for a second.

She gazed at Nick while she could. It wouldn't be long, and she hated knowing the last moments of her life would be seeing him in shock and agony and knowing that she too, was going to die exactly like that. The last year, the last six months, had been...amazing, working with the fox. And it was all going to end here, by the endgame of some egotistical madman.

Light and heat flushed her world for what seemed like an eternity.

She woke up shortly afterwards, barely a second or too later, in the exact same position that she had been in earlier, just in small amounts of pain from around the tips of her ears.

Standing in front of her was Miles, body blocking most of the light and heat. The edges around him, specifically the building they had hit behind, were practically gone. And Miles...was glowing. It turned off every second or so, leaving him his natural orange, only to start up again, all of his fur glowing white.

"Remember this, Eggman?" his voice was quiet, but there was no doubt in Judy's mind that the maniac had heard the fox easily. There was something different about his voice, that they could hear him clearly despite him being quiet. There was an edge to it, a hidden danger that only those two would know.

"I see...the experiment is a failure then. Time to go!" Eggman said, jettisoning the rest of the robot and leaving him alone in his own personal travel mobile. He jet off quickly, leaving far too fast for most of the other officer's to do anything about it.

"No you don't..." Miles said, before turning back around to Judy and Nick. "You two alright? I'm going after him, I'm finishing this," he said, leaving in a burst of speed towards Eggman's mobile.

* * *

It had been some time since I've actually used my Chaos Empowered Form. I went Super at Angel Island, but I hadn't actually used the form to run around, and suddenly I remembered both the good and the bad bits about it. The good? I was invincible. I didn't care who, or what, I hit, I just plowed practically straight on through it. The bad? I only had about fifty seconds unless I got more rings. Fortunately, there seemed to be a large amount of rings that had simply appeared in the last few seconds. I blame chaos.

I think we were only about maybe thirty feet in the air. I destroyed the shell of Cerbertail easy enough, just by going through it, and ever since then the chase was on. No use letting Eggman have another weapon should he escape again.

I'm not Sonic. Sonic can actually fly with his Super form, but I didn't need a Super form to do that. I could already do it. But the form did give me enough energy to where I didn't need to worry about tiring too quickly. Unfortunately I was also slower than Sonic. Round and round we went, doing the same thing that we had done earlier except in reverse, with me chasing and him running. I managed to at least build up enough speed twice to hit him, but doing so ate up my rings, so instead I focused more on trying to find shortcuts and beating him there. I took whatever time I could to gather more rings.

I'm not too sure what Eggman was doing though. He seemed to be going in a circle, although I wasn't too sure if that was because I seemed to be herding him like that, or if that was his doing. I would've called the Cyclone for some more missiles but, without the Chaos Emerald it would have had to go off battery alone. And each chaos missile eats through the battery like nothing I've seen.

Not to mention it couldn't keep up with us well, and without a pilot it'd be stuck going in circles too!

I forced him around a corner, near an old abandoned concrete...parking garage? I wasn't sure what it was. I could see one of the police cars beneath me, sirens blazing, attempting to keep up with both myself and Eggman. In fact, now that I looked closer at it, it was Hopps and Wilde. Because for some reason they were always in the middle of things, always wanting to do their part. I was grateful for their help most of the time, but right now I wasn't sure how they could help...

I wonder what they were planning? I didn't think about it so much, just trying to focus solely on defeating Eggman once and for all. Around and around we continued, if he was saying something besides his pre-recorded lines I didn't hear him, and I wasn't saying anything towards him. I had a feeling he was just as silent as I was, concentrating solely on where I was and where I was going. He was planning something, I felt. But what...?

I managed to get him to circle back around, finding some more rings stuck in an alleyway. He saw me in front of him, and for a second seemed to panic, only to turn around as quickly as he could. We had only flown for a second, I think he was trying to go down to outmaneuver me or something, when quite literally the last thing I expected happened.

From the parking garage, a police car almost quite literally flew off a makeshift ramp. It then- and I have no idea how they timed this so well but by this point I was tired enough, even Super, to not care- hit Eggman's impossible to break glass, and then for a second nothing. Impressive, definitely, but if only there was some extra force, some way to force Eggman to lose control for only a second, I could get in and attack. But his machine was capable of withstanding even Sonic...it would take several bombs to go off before I could get my chance.

Then it exploded.

Huh. Well, what do you know. Knowing exactly how tough Eggman's shield-glass is, I used the last of my rings, a paltry ten, and charged straight for him, breaking the glass, and shattering the Eggmobile (I still have no idea what it's called...) to pieces. I heard a loud whoop from above in Judy's voice, even as I practically fell to the ground. I had broken through completely; that thing wouldn't be getting back up again.

A little ways away from me, I could see the wreckage of their cruiser, and the Egg-O-Matic against the ground, in a bunch of tiny shards. And there he was, laying against the seat, supposedly out like a light. Eggman.

* * *

"Nick, come on we have to help!" Judy said, pulling the fox towards their car.

"And what can we do Carrots? Tails went Super or something, there's no way that we can help with that! Oh hey, he dropped the Emerald..." Nick said, walking over to the now almost cooled off concrete. There was a small hole around it, nearly a foot deep, the sides still warm to the touch.

And in the middle sat the glowing Chaos Emerald. Nick picked it up, making sure to touch it only with his gloves, before putting it into his pocket.

As soon as he picked it up, Judy suddenly found herself atop the old parking garage in Savannah Central, the only one of its kind there. It still had its ramp there, and she could see the cruiser, extremely close by almost as if she was driving somehow, suddenly accelerate, jumping off the ramp as fast it could. She could see it hit Eggman's mobile almost dead on, and suddenly she felt like that was where she needed to go.

"Judy? You ok?" Nick asked, waving his hand in front of her. She shook herself out of her reverie, the tips on her ears just slightly stinging. "You're kind of out of it, you sure you feel alright?"

"Yes Nick, I'm fine. But I have an idea."

"Is this an idea that is only going to get us into trouble and may or may not help nearly as much as you think?"

"Probably."

"Bring it."

And that was how Nick found himself staring at his partner, from the driver's seat, as she explained her plan. Her plan which consisted of 'Go to the garage lot and make sure that ramp is still there, and then we jump off it and hit Eggman.'

His response, the necessary, "Are you sure you're alright Carrots? There's no reason that we have to think that he'd go that way."

"Trust me on this, he's going that way."

Nick just shrugged and did as his partner suggested. "How do you know that he's going that way?"

"I think...I think I may have had a vision." Judy expected Nick to turn to her, suddenly say that she was crazy, and drive to the hospital, or the psych ward or something. Or better yet, head back to Cliffside.

Instead, he only nodded, "Another Chaos Effect...what is with those? I've gotten them too, don't worry I don't think you're crazy...er than usual." Which had earned him a teasing smack on the arm, and a small smirk from her.

They drove in relative silence, Nick long since having turned on the sirens. He pointed out the glowing two-tailed fox and grey...egg-shaped flying thing that wasn't a jet or a plane flying above them. Judy nodded, "See, told you he'd go this way. Garage is over there, hurry to the roof!" Nick nodded and concentrated on driving all the way up as fast as he could.

He had to fishtail a couple of times, Judy screaming the first time he did it and then glaring at him every time afterwards, but he made it up the entire five floors in record time. Sure enough, at the far side, lay a small wooden ramp, it's wood still good and solid.

"Alright Fluff, we're here. Now what do we do?" Nick asked, purposely leaving the car turned on. Judy closed her eyes and tried to think. The vision said the car would jump, but it was a question of when, how. Who would be driving, would they make it out? She wasn't paying attention to those segments...Thinking through it, it suddenly felt less real than it had when it first happened to her.

"Soon. Put the Emerald in the back, behind the bombs. Miles said that those explode at any Chaos energy right?" Judy asked. Nick pulled up the back and suddenly felt like his partner had gone insane, and was trying to off both of them at once.

"Uh...are you sure about this Carrots? Isn't this dangerous?"

"Yeah, but I have a plan. Just lay the Emerald right in here," Judy said, taking out a small set of napkins and making a kind of nest for it. Any amount of force forward would push the Emerald into the nest of the three bombs, but it definitely wouldn't roll forward on its own. Nick hesitated even pulling the Emerald out, before Judy said, "Hurry, he's almost here!"

Spurred into action, Nick took a giant leap and took the Emerald out of his pocket, and breathed a small sigh of relief when he didn't immediately explode. The bombs did turn from a dull black, signaling they were off, to a blue. He put the Emerald inside Judy's little nest of cloth and fabric, and hoped it wouldn't accidentally touch the bombs first.

"Nick, spot for me. Just tell him when you see Eggman get past the Hotel Heights!" Judy said, forcing herself to climb into the driver's seat. Before he could say anything, she continued, "Don't worry about me. I can do this. Trust me."

Peeling his eyes away from the doe, he did as she requested. He could hear her rev the engine a bit, getting it ready to go, and wished that he could be in her place now. But this was her plan, and he wasn't sure it was going to work. He knew he wasn't going to convince her otherwise, not with the time they had.

If it didn't though, the ZPD would lose a cruiser, and they both might die in the explosion. If it did...they'd catch Eggman. Was it worth it? Nick didn't have much time to think on it before he saw the grey machine come forward. "Carrots, go now!" he yelled.

He heard the engine rev up and suddenly peel out, instantly accelerating to sixty. He heard the door open on the other side just as the car hit the ramp, and smiled with relief as he saw his partner, out of the crazy insane planed-for-demolition car, and relatively safe. Relatively because face it, how safe were any of them, especially with Eggman loose?

Nick wasn't too sure what he was expecting from this plan. But whatever he was, it wasn't what he got. Judy had hit Eggman dead on, almost straight in the glass. For a second, Nick thought that it hadn't worked, and there wasn't even a small break in the glass for their efforts.

And then the car exploded. The Emerald trap and Chaos bombs had done their job, and had done it well. It forced Eggman straight down, almost straight onto the concrete, and with absolutely no control over his vehicle, which is exactly the opening that Miles had needed to punch through it going at least five hundred.

Judy felt the heat of the explosion rush past her already sore ears. "Was that it, did we do it!?" she yelled. Seeing Nick's nod, she looked down at let out a loud whoop as she saw the damage. And with hopefully Eggman down for the count, now was the best time of any.

"Come on, we have to head down ther-whoa!?" Judy said, turning to her fox partner only to have him be one step ahead of her, picking her up as he had done in the caves underneath Snowpeak.

"No you don't. You're still injured. We should go and let the real docs take a look at you."

"Fine, but we have to not let him get away! Remember, every time they've turned their backs on him he's disappeared somehow! Every time!"

The street was quiet. After all the noise from throughout the day, the amount of devastation and chaos, the silence was somehow more deafening. There was a stillness to the air, that both Judy and Nick picked up on. Miles lay in the road, face up and breathing heavily, but with a grin on his face.

Judy and Nick looked over the wreckage of the Eggmobile, and sure enough Eggman was still in there, strapped to the seat. The glass had been blown out...and up...completely. He had a small river of blood from the top of his bald head, slowly heading down towards the oversized mustache.

Nick had to try a bit harder than he would've thought he needed to as he tried to pull the fat man out of the seat, but given a few tries managed to successully, and without more injuries although neither of them would've cared too much. Judy handed him her cuffs, and even though Eggman was unconscious, cuffed him anyways.

A few moments later sirens filled the air as the rest of the ZPD managed to finally make it. "Hopps, Wilde. Good work. What happened?" Chief Bogo asked as he got out of one of the bigger cars. It wasn't often that he got called out too, but something like this he wouldn't have missed. No one could claim that he was lazy while his officers risked their lives.

"Chief, sir! We followed Miles and Robotnik down here, and remembered about the roof ramp from a few days ago. Miles needed a distraction in order to push through, and we gave it to him," Judy said, saluting from atop Nick's head. Nick smirked slightly, knowing that Bogo could not reasonably assume that Nick would salute too, considering who he was carrying.

"Distraction!? I'll say, you exploded a car on him!" Miles said, having finally gotten up. He still seemed slightly out of it, based that he was stumbling around like he was lightheaded or drunk.

"Do I want to know?" Bogo asked. Both Judy and Nick shook their heads wildly, and the water buffalo sighed and bent down to take the still unconscious human. He hefted him up with ease that spoke of his strength.

Wreckage and destruction had left the street in tatters. Nick let Judy down onto the ground, and walked over to examine more from the destruction of their vehicle and the Eggmobile. The Chaos Emerald was nowhere in sight. "Hey Carrots...take this and help me look for the Emerald!" he said, tossing one of his gloves over to the bunny. He knew that she'd want to help, and there was no saying no. Best to at least try to minimize the damage.

"Woah, settle down!" Bogo yelled as suddenly Eggman regained consciousness, or rather, had been faking unconsciousness. He rammed Bogo out of the way, pushing him to the side as he let go of a gem, this one a glowing white, right over his feet.

"Catch!" he yelled as he kicked the Emerald over towards the fox and bunny, only to be immediately tasered by Bogo and brought to the ground. Although the Emerald was already in the air, and there was no stopping it.

Miles turned to see it, and although his head was slowly killing him, fortunately figuratively, he saw the Emerald fly through the air, and suddenly the last few days had made much, much more sense.

And was infinitely worse than he had thought.

Judy hadn't managed to get the glove on yet when she heard the yell from the human, but she saw the white gem flying towards her, and her body reacted on instinct to try and grab it, even as she realized what was happening. Unlike the other Emerald, which made its wants and desires known to her, this one didn't, although it still wanted her to catch it. It was much more lax about it, seemingly lazy in its apathy.

Nick saw the Emerald soaring, and saw Judy's body attempting to snatch it out of the air. He only had one glove on, as he had given his other to Judy- how the Chaos-Touched managed to get around all day wearing them he'd have no idea. Unfortunately it was the hand furthest from Judy; he'd have to catch it bare-pawed if he wanted to intercept.

And something told him he definitely wanted and needed to intercept.

Miles had pushed his body to its limit, and tried to go further. He simply couldn't move, as most of his muscles had seemingly frozen. He knew, scientifically, what happened, but couldn't help but swear at his body for doing so at the worst possible time.

Nick crashed into Judy just as the Emerald reached them. He felt the warmth of her fur on his back as his hand tried to knock it away, only for his hand to grab it instead. He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but he knew a Chaos Effect would happen. Would it be painful? Neither Cream nor Miles had ever said anything about it. What would change? How much would change? Against everything they had tried, it had still come to this anyways.

For a moment nothing seemed to happen, and Nick thought nothing would happen, before heat suddenly flushed straight into Nick's body, and through him, Judy's. The Emerald itself was changing Nick, changing the reality around them, to something that could have only been defined with one word; Chaos. He felt everything around him; the love, the hope, the fear, the panic, everything at once seemingly crammed into his head faster than he thought was possible.

The moment was over before they knew it, as suddenly a brilliant light flashed from the Emerald, and it shot out of Nick's grip faster than he could've ever thought. It soared twenty feet in the air, only to be joined by the other six Chaos Emeralds. They danced in a circle above them. Green, orange, cyan, blue, white, violet, and red. For only two or three seconds, they flew, before they closed in almost touching each other, and then they scattered, each one soaring upwards and outwards.

Judy immediately turned to Nick to see if he was ok. He looked down at his paws, expecting the same side effect that had occurred to the others, expecting to be taller or simply changed.

He hadn't. He still had four fingers. He quickly checked Judy, who also seemed to be completely fine. Better than fine actually; her injuries on her feet and ears had been healed completely. "Miles...please explain?" Nick asked, almost worriedly.

"Why would you do that!? What did you do!?" Bogo yelled to the figure of Robotnik on the ground. His suit had been scuffed up but overall had been fine. Even the small blood trail on his head seemed to have vanished.

"Prower will explain," Robotnik said simply. Bogo immediately looked over to the two-tailed fox, his face demanding an explanation.

"That was a Chaos Effect...looks like a simple but big one. The Emeralds had been in our world for a long time, practically since Angel Island. The longer they stayed in this world, the more their power built up. I guess they finally released it to go back to their original world..." Miles said, looking up at the sky. He too, had been healed by the light of the Emeralds.

"So they're gone?"

"For now. A big Effect alright...no wonder it's been causing you two visions of past and future," Miles said, looking over at Nick and Judy.

"You've been having...you know, I don't care. Write it in the reports, get it on my desk by next week. Take some days off. We'll get this thing to a maximum security prison," Bogo said, tapping Robotnik's body with his hoof. Judy nodded, and began compiling the list of everything they'd have to list. It would take both of them a while, considering how much had happened...

"And you, Prower...you've done this city a service, but at the same time have caused massive amounts of havoc and trouble. Consider yourself pardoned for that, but I don't want to see you cause any more trouble. Even a complaint will get your tails out faster than you can run."

Miles gave a mock salute as he said, "I understand. Besides, I think I've spent enough time anyways, and Sonic's going to need some help to track down those Emeralds." His eyes widened as his ears seemed to flip around, and suddenly seemed that much more eager to leave.

"So I guess I missed the party then?" A voice asked from around the ruins, as Sonic stepped around he looked them up and down. "Yep, definitely missed the party." The hedgehog was covered in dirt and sand, as if he had been running for several days straight.

"You missed it alright, slowpoke. Now come on, we have to track down those Emeralds!" Miles said, quickly hugging the hedgehog. "Nick, Judy, anyone else, if you have any questions feel free to ask us, we'll respond when we can!" he said, taking off quickly. Sonic looked up and down the street wildly for a moment at the fleeing fox.

"Tails?" Sonic shouted as he followed the orangish-yellow sidekick. He turned to the others, "Guess I should go see what's eating him. Take care of Eggman until I get back!" he said as he quickly followed the fennec Chaos-Touched.

Judy and Nick shared a quick glance at how fast the fox had fled, only to hear the sound of a few planes flying overhead as both the blue biplane and the red one that Miles had been flying earlier soared by. "Is anyone else worried that Miles left suddenly?" Nick asked rhetorically.

"No. The fox has only the smallest idea of what just happened," Eggman said. He had been silent during Sonic's ten second arrival, and hadn't even looked up at him.

"Why?" Bogo asked, pushing Eggman hard against the side of one of the police cars.

"For an experiment...which succeeded, by the way. Oh ho ho ho...you think you've won...but you have only won the battle. I've already won the war..." Bogo silenced the madman by shoving him into the vehicle. He turned to Nick and Judy, both standing around and unsure of what to do now.

"Wilde, Hopps. Cleanup crews will be here soon, meet me at the station. And do try to avoid the media." he said, getting into his own vehicle and driving off. Nick mock-saluted, only to curse wildly.

"Why, what's wrong Nick?" Judy asked. After they just caught one of the biggest criminal masterminds of the century, shouldn't they be happy? Even as uncertain as the future was, was that really worth getting all worked up over?

"Carrots...we don't have a car anymore." Nick deadpanned. Understanding dawned in Judy's mind. "Sweet cheese and crackers..."

Nick walked in to an amusing sight at the department. It had taken them a while to get back, at least until another pair of officers had picked them up to drop them off at the station. They had four dispatchers on staff for Precinct One. Almost never were they in the same building at the same time. And now he knew why.

All four of them were felines. There was Clawhauser, their usual day dispatcher who worked front desk, excitable as he always was, hugging the usual night dispatcher, Nightclaw, a dark panther who was currently trying to get out of the way. Not an easy task considering how strong Clawhauser was, no matter what he said.

Meanwhile the other two, a leopard and a smaller mountain lion, were both laughing and attempting to pry off Clawhauser with things like crowbars and donuts. It didn't seem to be working.

"Am I...interrupting anything?" he said, walking up to the front desk. In front of the five seats were five black boxes with radios and notes of various sizes and shapes. The dials made almost no sense to Nick, which he was kind of glad for because otherwise he would've been working front desk duty.

"No! Not at all! Just getting Jessie here to accept that she did a good thing by asking that bunny to help out!" Clawhauser said, pointing at Nightclaw.

"I didn't do anything Ben! You were the one that mentioned that we needed the help!"

"Well yes, but how often do we get bunnies in here anyways? No offense Judy, I always forget how good your hearing is," Ben continued as Judy walked into the building.

"What am I supposed to be offended by?" she asked Nick, trying to ignore the scene behind the desk.

"Clawhauser called you cute," Nick said, doing his usual half-lidded sly grin. Judy looked over at them for a moment, before turning back to Nick.

"That explains Cream then...I wonder when she got here?" Judy asked aloud. Nick fake-pouted at the fact his joke didn't cause anymore mayhem. Judy's hearing was far better than it had any right to be.

"Shortly after you left for Snowpeak. She was the one that gave evidence that Miles was in the area, and had called in the scene earlier. Are you ever thinking about becoming an officer, Miss Rabbit?" Bogo said, sneaking up from behind them. Cream followed him, her blue little watcher chao thing flying above her shoulder.

"Maybe, maybe not. There's still a lot of time before I make any decisions like that. Just don't tell Mom, ok? I don't want her to get worried," Cream said, walking past the water buffalo. "By the way, thanks for letting Tails off the hook..."

"That wasn't my decision. That was GUN's. But you're welcome. Hopps, Wilde, congratulations. Take the rest of the week off. Be back on Monday," he deadpanned, walking away.

"Did he seriously call us back here just for that?" Nick asked. Judy shrugged.

"I don't know. He came back after visiting maximum security to drop off Eggman, and told me to suddenly get out and forget whatever it was I was looking at."

"And what exactly were you looking at? You were a good dispatcher by the way, have you done things like that in the past?" Nick asked. He tried to ignore Nightclaw's, and the other dispatchers suddenly stop talking and pay attention. He could barely ignore Clawhauser mouthing the words 'Ask her if she wants a volunteer position!'

"Oh, Bogo was apparently looking up at some government reports about Sonic and Tails. The stuff reads closer to fanfiction than I think they ever wanted to know. I think some of it was actually..." Cream said, looking thoughtful for a few moments.

Nick sighed as the dispatchers suddenly looked at him crazily, before he turned to Judy. She rolled her eyes, "I think we have a volunteer position open if you want one for dispatcher. Based upon what they're doing."

Cream turned around to see that all four were looking at her with almost crazy smiles on their faces, nodding up and down. "Uh...maybe...?" she responded nervously. 'As much as things change...' Nick thought, as the dispatchers apparently took maybe as a yes, 'somethings will always stay the same...'

* * *

"Think you're gonna miss the place?" Sonic asked me. We had ran to the top of Snowpeak, circling all the way around, mostly to avoid any possible paparazzi or things like that. We had been just watching the city for a while.

"Hmm...no I don't think so. Good times and bad. I have a feeling that I missed something though."

"You mean like why you left so suddenly without even so much as a bye?"

"I heard the media circus coming, and wanted no part of that. No, it's something a lot more ominous. I don't know though...it makes me think that if I stopped or slowed down for just a bit, I wouldn't have missed it."

"Well, if you missed it you missed it. Don't worry about it! Come on," Sonic said, getting up and holding out his hand to help me. I smiled, and grabbed it as I got up too. "We got places to go, people to see, and adventures to have!" he said, as he ran down the other side of the mountain.

I smiled, and looked back at the city that had been my home for years. I wasn't sad about leaving, that's just the nature of a wanderer. But...things didn't add up properly. And I knew that whatever Eggman's plan was, it should always add up. But this one, this seemingly random plan, didn't. He, somehow, against all notions of the Chaos Theory, had controlled that Chaos Effect.

A puzzle for another time. With Eggman hopefully out of the way for a while, maybe now we can have peace for a bit. Of course, knowing our luck, and knowing Chaos...there was nothing quiet about our lives. But sometimes...that was how things were. I gave one last wistful look at the city, before running down the mountain to join the blue hedgehog.

FIN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still not 100% on that ending, but I think it's the best I could do without rewriting the entire story. Anyways, that was Chaos Theory. I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it! I also hope it doesn't seem too rushed (it is rushed, obviously, because everything is happening so quickly), but I hope I at least spread it around a little.
> 
> Until Next Time!


	18. Post-Mortem

Chaos Theory Post-Mortem

This is basically a long AN; feel free to skip it. You've already read the ending!

I started this story back in September as a kind of challenge. I had an idea the first time I watched Zootopia, and it wasn't this story. This story is what spawned out of an idea of how to make that story work. My mind is bizarre and rather scary. Needless to say, the next story I write (Storm Front) will part of that story.

I do these post-mortems after I finish each story that I actually finish. Which is a lot rarer than I want it to be. So in each one, I go back over the story, and tell myself what I think I did good, bad, terrible, and how I could improve. Some I do multiple times, like when I finished a story, and then went back and edited the entire thing. I did two that time, one for each version.

The good; I think I nailed the Sonic characters after they had been aged up. Cream was still innocent, and in fact I had intended her to only be a one-chapter character but then I realized that no, she wouldn't let Tails go about this alone. She'd join in, somehow. Tails was still neutral good, leaning towards Chaotic (Not quite at Sonic's level, but definitely heading there). In fact a lot of how this fic turned out is because I said "Well, what would the characters do?" and then went off that.

The bad; I'm not sold on how I dealt with a lot of the scenes. The descriptions were poor most of the time, the action scenes weren't fluid enough nor were there enough of them, and finally Nick and Judy's scenes.

Nick and Judy were a lot harder to pin down that I had thought. Snarky fox, optimistic bunny. Couldn't have been too hard, right? Then I realized that no, bunny is rather snarky and snide as well, and then I remembered that both of them are creatures that are, stereotypically, rather trickster-y. This means that I had to show them as both intelligent, which they are, show that they both came up with plans and that it just wasn't one while ignoring the other, yet still showing that they don't understand everything. Like...the Chaos Theory.

The terrible; The chaos effects, or as I called them, Deus Ex Machina. Especially that last one, Judy's vision that led them to the roof. I wrote myself into a corner, a very obvious corner, and had to get out somehow. I mean, yes I used the visions in the past, but only to make sure that it was evident that something seriously strange was going on. Incidentally, that last scene (where Judy launched the car using the jump ramp to hit Eggman's Egg-O-Matic or whatever it's called which then explodes) was planned since the beginning. One of the few scenes that actually stayed the entire time.

The halfway-decent; The update/writing schedule. For record purposes, I'm finishing chapter 17 on November 20th, 2016. So in about the course of two months, I wrote a 70,000 word fic, not including post-mortem or AN's. That's not bad, especially considering that my longest project to date clocked in at 84k. Granted, I did that one in a month, but that was NaNoWriMo so...yeah. But updating each week gave me plenty of time to edit, look over everything, etc. Handy for when I wasn't sure if I could get any writing done that week, which fortunately happened only a few times. And even though I had plenty of time for it...

One of the things that I think I could have done a lot better is the editing. I was, on average, two to three weeks ahead of my posts. So when I updated with chapter 14, I was already editing the final chapter. I worked so far ahead mostly to give myself plenty of time in case I needed to change something, or in case I needed to change an entire conversation. (Chapter 12, I'm looking at you. There was a scene between Nightclaw and Nick that hinted at certain activities taking place between Nick and Judy, which I felt for this particular incarnation of the two doesn't exactly fit. Thus, I took it out and replaced with a not-still-quite-so-innocent version, but one that at least made more sense to me) Another reason that I could've done a lot better in editing is that most editing is simply supposed to take what's already there and make it easier to read. Me? I added words. Lots of them. Nearly 13,000 in editing, truth be told, across the entire work. That's...a bit much, in my opinion.

One of the other things I did well was the text messages between the Sonic characters. They never got a lot of time in this story, but mostly because in a small area like this one (Zootopia isn't small, but considering what happened in Unleashed where they ran around the world...) both Sonic and Tails would be almost impressively broken. But I still wanted to show that bond they shared, especially with each other, and hint at other things that might have taken place during the time skips. I used the concept originally because I wanted to show that the characters are still there, still doing something, even if they can't show up. In the next story in the line, Storm Front, I use emails instead, just because I'm more familiar with that, and it adds in extra gags that I can't fit in the narrative.

For the future; there are plenty of pathways I can take this, but I have had an idea for a while now on which one I want to explore. I've written up the first few chapters and it does seem to be much tougher than this one, which makes sense. I'm an Adventure writer, not a mystery/whatever genre the next one will be. The Sonic characters, which weren't planned to have too much influence on it, have appeared a bit more than I feel safe. Either way, I'm going to leave it in the pure Zootopia section, as the only Sonic character that truly appears (in the first few chapters, that is) is Cream. Tails makes an appearance, but only in text, and never in person, for reasons that will be made apparent. That said, multiple other Sonic characters also appear as mentioned (Espio makes a surprise cameo, incidentally).

So in case anybody is wondering what exactly was the plan I came up with at the start of this, and how much of this was the story spiraling out of my control, here's what I came up with; to start, Tails was in Zootopia for several years, getting a college degree. Robots start attacking, Nick and Judy try to solve cases while Tails runs away and makes things worse, making them want to arrest him, and then finally they all find Eggman, and Judy drives an exploding car off a building at him.

Most everything else I did was made up on the spot. The running through zones, the majority of how the Chaos Emeralds work (I was thinking about it at work one day, and settled on this which then became a 'well, why not?'). I think it got kind of out of hand truthfully, but I like the end product so there's that.

Also I'm going to take this time to explain a few things that I never could in the story. Things such as 'Why do Sonic and Tails write out their texts (and yes, they are texts) like letters?'. The answer is easy; Sonic was bad at technology, and Tails humored him. Even afterwards, it became a bit closer to a running joke, so they both ran with it anyways. The Chaos Theory is supposed to be strange and misleading, as are the Chaos Emeralds. As for what actually happened in Chapter 17...you'll find out. That's for later.

Either way, I'm out. Leave me a review, comment, whatever you like to tell me what you think. Whether you enjoyed it, couldn't stand it past chapter 9, hated chapter 2, etc. In my personal opinion, chapters 3, 12, and 15-17 were my weakest ones. Whatever you want to do, I'm ok with. Anything I could do to improve upon would be amazingly helpful.

Thanks for reading. Until Next Time.


End file.
